AIDS TO FAITH; 



SERIES OF THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS. 



BY SEVERAL WRITERS. 



By WILLIAM THOMSON, D.D., 
LOBD BISHOP OF GLODCESTEB AND BBISTOL. 



LONDON: 

JOHN MUKKAY, ALBEMARLE STEEET. 

1861. 

The right of Translation is reserved. 



LONDON : PRINTED BT W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, 
AND CHARING CROSS. 



PREFACE. 



The Essays in this volume are intended to offer aid 
to those whose faith may have been shaken by recent 
assaults. The writers do not pretend to have exhausted 
subjects so vast and so important, within the compass 
of a few pages ; but they desire to set forth their 
reasons for believing the Bible, out of which they teach, 
to be the inspired Word of God, and for exhorting 
others still to cherish it as the only message of salva- 
tion from God to man. They hope that these Essays 
may be, to those whose attention they can secure, 
incentives to further thought and reading. They have 
avoided rather than sought direct controversy. They 
have excluded personality ; they have not spoken with 
undue harshness of the views they have been forced to 
oppose. 

For the choice of contributors and the arrangement 
of subjects the Editor is responsible. Most of the 
writers gave their names without knowing those 
of their coadjutors ; and not one of them, but the 
Editor, has seen all the Essays up to the day of publica- 
tion. Each has written independently, without any 
editorial interference, beyond a few hints to prevent 
omissions and repetitions, such as must arise when 
several writers work without concert. 

a 2 



iv 



PREFACE. 



On the withdrawal of one of the contributors, Dr. 
McCaul most kindly undertook a second paper, at a 
short notice. No one has a better claim to be heard 
on the important subjects that have been confided to 
him. 

Professor Mansel lent much valuable aid to the 
Editor in an unexpected increase of labour. 

This volume is humbly offered to the Great Head of 
the Church, as one attempt among many to keep men 
true to Him in a time of much doubt and trial. Under 
His protection, His people need not be afraid. The 
old difficulties and objections are revived ; but they will 
meet in one way or another the old defeat. While 
the world lasts sceptical books will be written and 
answered, and the books, perhaps, and the answers alike 
forgotten. But the Rock of Ages shall stand unchange- 
able ; and men, worn with a sense of sin, shall still find 
rest "under the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
land." 

W. G. & B. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. — ON MIRACLES AS EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY .. 1 

H. L. Mansel, B.D., "Waynnete Professor of Moral and 
Metaphysical Philosophy, Oxford ; Tutor and 
late Fellow of St. John's College. 



II.— ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRIS- 
TIANITY 43 

William Fitzgeeald, D.D., Lord Bishop of Cork, 
Cloyne and Ross. 

III. — PROPHECY 81 

A. McCaul, D.D., Professor of Hebrew and Old Testa- 
ment Exegesis, King's College, London, and 
Prebendary of St. Paul's. 

IV. — IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION 133 

F. C. Cook, M.A., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, 
one of H. M.'s Inspectors of Schools, Prebendary 
of St. Pauls, and Examining Chaplain to the 
Bishop of Lincoln. 

V.— THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION 189 

A. McCaul, D.D., Professor of Hebrew and Old Tes- 
tament Exegesis, King's College, London, and 
Prebendary of St. Paul's. 

VI. — ON THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE 

PENTATEUCH .. 237 

George Rawlinson, M.A., Camden Professor of Ancient 
History, Oxford, and late Fellow and Tutor of 
Exeter College. 

VII.— INSPIRATION 287 



Edward Harold Browne, B.D., Norrisian Professor of 
Divinity, Cambridge, and Canon Residentiary of 
Exeter Cathedral. 



VIII.— THE DEATH OF CHRIST 325 

"William Thomson, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester 
and Bristol. 

IX.— SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION 371 

Charles John Ellicott, B.D., Dean of Exeter, and 
Professor of Divinity, King's College, London. 

b 



ESSAY I. 



ON MIEACLES AS EVIDENCES OF 
CHRISTIANITY. 



CONTENTS OF ESSAY I. 



1. Inteoductiox— A belief in the re- 

ality of miracles is indispensable 
to Christianity. 

2. Miracles belong to the moral as 

■well as to the sensible evidences 
of Christianity, and are part of its 
essential doctrines, not merely of 
its external accessories. 

3. Fallacy of the argument from the 

disbelief in reported miracles of 
the present day : this argument 
not applicable to the miracles 
of Christ. 

4. Testimony how far able to prove a 

miracle as such : the proof of 
one miracle removes the antece- 
dent presumption against others 
of the same series. 

5. Connection between the miracles 

of the Old Testament and those 
of the New. 

6. Amount of testimony in support of 

the Christian miracles. 

7. Fitness of the miracles as accom- 

paniments of man's redemption. 

8. Statement of the question as re- 

lated to modern science. 

9. Position of miracles with reference 

to the empirical laws of matter. 

10. Supposed objection against mira- 

cles from the uniformity of nature 
—Hume's argument not strength- 
ened by the subsequent progress 
of science 

11. Advance of physical science tends 

to increase our conviction of the 
supernatural character of the 
Christian miracles. 

12. Difference, as regards science, be- 

tween physical phenomena and 
works done by human agency. 

13. Final alternative necessitated by 

scientific progress. 

14. Eefutation of Hume's argument : 

a miracle is not properly a vio- 
lation of the laws of nature, 
but the introduction of a special 
cause. 

15. Introduction of special causes is 

not incredible — Objection from 
the supposed necessary relations 
of natural forces to each other. 

16. Exception to this necessity in the 

case of the human will — Exten- 
sion of the argument from the 
human will to the Divine. 



17. True conception of a miracle as the 

interposition of a superhuman 
will — Eelation of this superhuman 
will to the conception of nature, 
active and passive, and to that of 
law. 

18. Position of miracles with reference 

to our conceptions of God's nature 
and attributes — Limits within 
which this question must be dis- 
cussed — Form which it assumes 
in relation to miracles. 

19. Man's conception of God is derived 

from mind, not from matter, 

20. Conceptions of law, and order, and 

causation, are borrowed hy mate- 
rial from mental science. 

21. God is necessarily conceived as a 

Person, and as related to the 
personal soul of man. 

22. Nature conceals God: man reveals 

God. 

23. Consequences of the above prin- 

ciples : miracles must be judged, 
not merely from pli3 r sical, but 
also from moral and religious 
grounds, and their probability 
estimated by that of a revelation 
being given at all. 

24. The possibility of miracles follows 

from the belief in a personal God. 

25. Evidential value of miracles — Er- 

roneous views on this point — 
Miracles how far objects, how far 
evidences of faith. 

26. Miracles and doctrines, their rela- 

tion to each other — Negative 
character of the doctrinal crite- 
rion : its relation to the question 
whether miracles have been 
wrought at all. 

27. Agency of evil spirits is practically 

excluded from the question : 
practical question is between a 
Divine anil a human origin of 
Christianity, as regards the au- 
thority due to each. 

28. Theoretical authority of miracles 

as evidences of doctrines, 

29. Practical extension of this autho- 

rity — Doctrines of natural reli- 
gion may practically be proved 
by miracles, and have actually 
been so. 

30. Principle on which the evidential 

value of miracles depends. 

31. Conclusion. 



ON MIRACLES 

AS EVIDENCES OF CHBISTIANITY. 



1. What is the exact position of Miracles among the Evidences 
of Christianity, is a question which may be differently answered 
by different believers, without prejudice to their common belief. 
It has pleased the Divine Author of the Christian religion to 
fortify His revelation with evidences of various kinds, appealing 
with different degrees of force to different minds, and even to the 
same mind at different times. The grounds of belief consisting, 
not in a single demonstration, but in an accumulation of many 
probabilities, there is room, in the evidences as in the doctrines 
of Christianity, for special adaptations of different portions to dif- 
ferent minds ; nor can such adaptation be regarded as matter of 
regret or censure, so long as the personal preference of certain 
portions does not involve the rejection of the remainder. 

The question, however, assumes a very different character 
when it relates, not to the comparative importance of miracles 
as evidences, but to their reality as facts, and as facts of a super- 
natural kind. For if this is denied, the denial does not merely 
remove one of the supports of a faith which may yet rest securely 
on other grounds. On the contrary, the whole system of Chris- 
tian belief with its evidences, the moral no less than the intel- 
lectual influences, the precept and example for the future no less 
than the history of the past, — all Christianity in short, so far as 
it has any title to that name, so far as it has any special relation 
to the person or the teaching of Christ, is overthrown at the same 
time. 

2. For this question must be considered, not merely, as is too 
often done, in relation to a purely hypothetical case, to a sup- 
position of possible means by which the Christian religion might, 
had it so pleased God, have been introduced into the world 
otherwise than it was ; but in relation to the actual means by 
which it was introduced, to the teaching and practice of Christ 
and His Apostles, as they are portrayed in the only records 

b 2 



4 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



from which we can learn anything about them. Whether the 
doctrinal truths of Christianity could or could not have been 
propagated among men by moral evidence alone, without any 
miraculous accompaniments, it is at least certain that such was 
not the manner in which they actually were propagated, accord- 
ing to the narrative of Scripture. If our Lord not only did 
works apparently surpassing human power, but likewise ex- 
pressly declared that He did those works by the power of God, 
and in witness that the Father had sent Him ; — if the Apostles 
not only wrought works of a similar kind to those of their 
Master, but also expressly declared that they did so in His name, 
the miracles, as thus interpreted by those who wrought them, 
become part of the moral as well as the sensible evidences of 
the religion which they taught, and cannot be denied without 
destroying both kinds of evidence alike. " That ye may know 
that the Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, I 
say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go unto thine 
house : " " If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt 
the kingdom of God is come upon you :" " By the name of Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the 
dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole : " — 
let us imagine for an instant such words as these to have been 
uttered by one who was merely employing a superior know- 
ledge of natural laws to produce a false appearance of superna- 
tural power ; by an astronomer, for instance, who had predicted 
an eclipse to a crowd of savages, or by a chemist, availing him- 
self of his science to exhibit relative miracles to an ignorant 
people, — and we shall feel at once how even the most plausible 
of the natural explanations of miraculous phenomena deals the 
deathblow to the moral character of the teacher, no less than to 
the sensible evidence of his mission. 

But there is a yet higher witness to this intimate association 
of the Christian Evidences one with another, in that great fact 
which forms at once the central point of apostolical preaching 
and the earnest of the future hope of all Christian men. If there 
is one fact recorded in Scripture which is entitled, in the fullest 
sense of the word, to the name of a Miracle, the Besukkectton 
of Chkist is that fact. Here, at least, is an instance in which 
the entire Christian faith must stand or fall with our belief in the 
supernatural. "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching 



Essay 1.] 



ON MIRACLES. 



5 



vain, and your faith is also vain." Here, at least, is a test by 
which all the evidences of Christianity alike, internal as well as 
external, moral as well as intellectual, may be tried. If Christ 
did not truly die and truly rise from the dead, preaching is vain 
and faith is vain ; the Apostles are false witnesses of God ; nay, 
Christ Himself, if we may dare to say so, has witnessed falsely 
of Himself. 

It is necessary to state the case in this manner, in order to 
point out the real importance of the interests at stake. Nothing 
can be more erroneous than the view sometimes taken, w r hich 
represents the question of the possibility of miracles as one 
which merely affects the external accessories of Christianity, 
leaving the essential doctrines untouched.* Such might possibly 
be the case, were the argument merely confined to an inquiry 
into the evidence in behalf of some one miracle as an isolated 
fact, without impeaching the possibility of miracles in general. 
But such is not the question which has been raised, or can be 
raised, as regards the relation of miracles to the alleged dis- 
coveries of modern science. If the possibility of miracles be 
granted, the question, whether any particular miracle did or did 
not take place, is a question, not of science, but of testimony. 
The scientific question relates to the possibility of supernatural 
occurrences at all ; and if this be once decided in the negative, 
Christianity as a religion must necessarily be denied along with 
it. Some moral precepts may indeed remain, which may or may 
not have been first enunciated by Christ, but which in them- 
selves have no essential connection with one person more than 
with another ; but all belief in Christ as the great Example, as 
the Teacher sent from God, as the crucified and risen Saviour, is 
gone, never to return. The perfect sinlessness of His life and 
conduct can no longer be held before us as our type and pattern, 
if the works which He professed to perform by Divine power 
were either not performed at all or were performed by human 
science and skill. No mystery impenetrable by human reason, 
no doctrine incapable of natural proof, can be believed on His 

* See 'Essays and Reviews,' p. 94 j tiken,' 1858, p. 23) that "Miracles and 
(third edition). A similar view is taken : Prophecies are not adjuncts appended 
by Schleiermacher, ' Der Christliche ; from without to a revelation in itself 
jGlaube,' § 14, pp. 100, sqq. With far \ independent of them, but constitutive 
greater truth it is maintained on the elements of the revelation itself." 
other hand by Rothe (' Studien raid Kri- I 



6 AIDS TO FAITH. . [Essay I. 

authority ; for if He professed to work miracles, and wrought tliem 
not, what warrant have we for the trustworthiness of other parts of 
His teaching? The benefits obtained by His Cross and Passion, the 
promises conveyed by His Resurrection, are no longer the objects 
of Christian faith and hope ; for if miracles are impossible, He 
died as other men die, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw 
corruption. The prayers which we offer to Him who ascended 
into Heaven, and there liveth to make intercession for us, are a 
delusion and a mockery, if miracles are impossible ; for then is 
Christ not ascended into Heaven. 

3. In point of fact, even single miracles cannot be treated as 
isolated occurrences, and judged as we should judge of any simi- 
lar fact narrated at another time. There is a latent fallacy in the 
appeal which is sometimes made to the manner in which well- 
informed men deal with alleged marvels at the present day.* 
The Christian miracles can only be judged in connection with the 
scheme of whicli they form a part, and by the light "of all the 
collateral evidence which that scheme is able to furnish. The 
true question is, not what should we think of, or how should we 
endeavour to explain, a single marvellous occurrence, or even a 
series of such occurrences, reported as taking place at the present 
time ? but, what should we think of one who should come now, 
as Christ came, supported by all the evidences which combined 
to bear witness to Him ? If the world, with all its advance in 
physical science, were morally and religiously in the same state 
as at the time of Christ's coming ; if we, like the Jews of old, 
had been taught by a long series of prophecies to expect a Re- 
deemer in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed ; 
if the events of our national history tended to shew that the 
time was come to which those prophecies pointed as the epoch 
of their fulfilment ; if we were in possession of a religion, itself 
claiming a divine origin, yet in all its institutions bearing 
witness to something yet to come, — a religion of type, and cere- 
mony, and sacrifice, pointing to a further purpose and a spiritual 
significance beyond themselves ; if one were to appear, pro- 
claiming himself to be the promised Redeemer, appealing to our 



* See ' Essays and Keviews,' p. 107. 
A similar appeal to the practical denial 
of miracles is made by Kant, ' Eeligion 
innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Ver- 



nunft,' p. 100, ed. Kosenkranz; though 
Kant does not go so far as to deny 
the theoretical possibility of miracles. 



Essay I.] 



ON MIEACLES. 



7 



sacred writings as testifying of himself, doing works, not only 
full of power but of goodness, full of wonder, but also full of 
love, and confirmed by Scriptures expressly declaring tliat such 
works should be done by him that was to come ; doing them, 
not in secret, nor in an appointed place, nor with instruments 
prepared for the purpose, but openly and without effort, and 
upon occasions as they naturally presented themselves, in the 
street and in the market-place, in the wilderness and on the sea, 
by the sick man's bed and the dead man's bier ; and expressly 
declaring that he did them by the power of God and in proof 
that God had sent him ;— with all these circumstances com- 
bined, let any unprejudiced man among ourselves say which 
would be the more reasonable view to be taken of such works 
performed by such a person ; whether to admit his own account 
of them, guaranteed by all the weight of his character, or to 
refer them to some natural cause, which will at some future time 
receive its explanation by the advance of discovery. Surely 
those who, even in this enlightened age, chose to adopt the latter 
hypothesis, rather than admit the teacher's own testimony con- 
cerning himself, would be the legitimate successors of those 
who, under like circumstances, declared, " He casteth out devils 
through Beelzebub the chief of the devils." * 

4. But it is said that testimony is unable to prove a miracle as 
such. " No testimony," we are told on high scientific authority, 
"can reach to the supernatural; testimony can apply only to 
apparent sensible facts ; testimony can only prove an extraor- 
dinary and perhaps inexplicable occurrence or phenomenon : 
that it is due to supernatural causes is entirely dependent on 
the previous belief and assumptions of the parties." t Whatever, 
may be. the value of this objection as applied to a hypothetical 
case, in which the objector may select such occurrences and such 
testimonies as suit his purpose, it is singularly inapplicable to the 
works actually recorded as having been done by Christ and His 
Apostles, and to the testimony by which they, are actually sup- 
ported. It may, with certain exceptions, be applicable to a case 
in which the assertion of a supernatural cause rests solely on the 



* For this argument I am partly in- 
debted to Dean Lyall, ' Preparation of 
Prophecy,' p. 151, eel. 1854.", 

f ' Essays and Eeviews,' p. 107. This 



objection is partly borrowed from Dean 
Lyall, p. 23, who however uses it for a 
very different purpose. 



3 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay J. 

testimony of the spectator of the fact ; but it is not applicable to 
those in which the cause is declared by the performer. Let us 
accept, if we please, merely as a narrative of " apparent sensible 
facts," the history of the cure of the blind and dumb demoniac, 
or of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate ; but we cannot place 
the same restriction upon the words of our Lord and of St. Peter, 
which expressly assign the supernatural cause : " If I cast out 
devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto 
you :" " By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth doth this man 
stand here before you whole." * We have here, at least, a testi- 
mony reaching to the supernatural ; and if that testimony be 
admitted in these cases, it may be extended to the whole series 
of wonderful works performed by the same persons. For if a 
given cause can be assigned as the true explanation of any single 
occurrence of the series, it becomes at once the most reasonable 
and probable explanation of the remainder. The antecedent 
presumption against a narrative of miraculous occurrences, what- 
ever may be its weight, is only applicable to the narrative taken 
as a whole, and to the entire series of miracles which it contains. 
But if a single true miracle be admitted as established by suffi- 
cient evidence, the entire history to which it belongs is at once 
removed from the ordinary calculations of more or less proba- 
bility. One miracle is enough to shew that the series of events 
with which it is connected is one which the Almighty has seen fit 
to mark by exceptions to the ordinary course of His Providence ; 
and, if this be once granted, we have no a priori grounds on 
which we can determine how many of such exceptions are to be 
expected. If a single miracle recorded in the Gospels be once 
admitted, the remainder cease to have any special antecedent 
improbability, and may be established by the same evidence 
which is sufficient for ordinary events. For the improbability, 
whatever it may be, reaches no further than to shew that it is 
unlikely that God should work miracles at all ; not that it is 
unlikely that He should work more than a certain number. 

5. Hitherto we have spoken only of the miracles of Christ 
and His Apostles. But the miracles of the Old Testament also 
can only be rightly estimated through their connection with 
those of the New. The promise of man's redemption was coeval 



* St. Matt. xii. 28 ; Acts iv. 10. 



Essay I.J 



ON MIRACLES. 



9 



with his fall ; and the whole intervening history, as it is told in 
Scripture, is a narrative of the steps by which the world was 
prepared for the fulfilment of that promise. The miracles of the 
Old Testament, as has been observed, are chiefly grouped round 
two great epochs in the history of the theocratic kingdom — that 
of its foundation under Moses and Joshua, and that of its resto- 
ration by Elijah and Elisha.* They thus have a direct relation 
to the establishment and preservation of the Mosaic covenant, 
itself a supernatural system, provided with supernatural institu- 
tions, and preparing the way for the final consummation of 
God's supernatural providence in the advent of His Son.j Not 
merely the occasional miracles of Jewish history, but some of 
the established and prominent features of their religion down to 
the time of the Captivity — the gift of Prophecy, the Shechinah, 
the Urim and Thummim, the Sabbatical year, and others — mani- 
fest themselves as the supernatural parts of a supernatural sys- 
tem, and that system one having a definite purpose and pointing 
to a definite end.J They were the adjuncts^of the Law ; and 
"the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." 

6. The real question at issue between the believer and the 
unbeliever in the Scripture miracles is not whether they are 
established by sufficient testimony, but whether they can be 
established by any testimony at all. If it be once granted that 
testimony is admissible in the case, it is scarcely possible to con- 
ceive a stronger testimony than that which the Christian 
miracles can claim. It is the testimony, if ever such testimony 
was, not of man merely, but of God. Even as regards one who 
does not believe in the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, 
there are two witnesses to Christ which no other man, whatever 
may be his worth, can claim — the history of the Jewish nation 
before His coming, and the history both of the Jewish and of 
the Christian world afterwards. Whether it was by natural or 
by supernatural means, it cannot be denied that He to whom the 
natural and the supernatural are alike subject has permitted the 
course of events in the world to bear a witness to Christ, such 



* See Trench, ' Notes on the Mi- 
racles,' p. 45 (sixth edition). 

-t Compare Neander, ' Life of Christ,' 
p. 138, English translation ; Twesten, 
* Vorlesungen ueber die Dogmatiky ii., 



p. 178 ; Van Mildert, ' Boyle Lectures,' 
Sermon xxi. 

X Compare Bp. Atterbury, ' Sermons ' 
(1730), vol. i., p. 153. 



10 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



as lias neyer been borne to any other person who has appeared 
upon earth in the likeness of a man. It cannot be denied that 
the prophetic writings contain descriptions which, account for 
the correspondence as w r e may, do, as a fact, agree with the per- 
son and history of Jesus of Nazareth, as they agree with no 
other man, or body of men ; that the rites and ceremonies of the 
Jewish religion have a meaning as typical of Him, which no 
other interpretation can give to them ; that the temple and its 
services were brought to an end after His appearance on earth, 
as if expressly to exclude the claims of any future Messiah; 
that His dominion has been spread over the civilised world to 
such an extent, and by such means, as no other ruler, temporal 
or spiritual, can claim ; that superstitions have given way before 
His name which no other adversary had been able to shake ; 
that doctrines have been established by His teaching which in 
the hands of other teachers were but plausible and transitory 
conjectures. However these things may be accounted for, they 
are sufficient at l#ast to mark Him as the central figure of the 
world's history, looked forward to by all preceding generations, 
looked backward to by all following ; they are sufficient to 
secure for His sayings and His acts an authority which cannot 
be claimed by those of any other person. 

7. It is scarcely necessary to state how much this argument 
is strengthened when it is addressed to one Avho believes, no 
matter on what grounds, in any of the fundamental articles of 
the Christian Faith. I do not speak of one who believes in the 
narrative of the Gospels ; for to such an one the miracles are 
not matters of question ; but of one who in any sense believes in 
Christ as the Redeemer of mankind, though doubting some of 
the records of His earthly life. If God has seen fit to redeem 
the world by Christ and by Christ alone, what marvel if the his- 
tory of Christ and of the dispensation preparatory to Christ 
exhibits signs and wonders such as no other history can claim ? 
The antecedent probability, in this case, is for the miracles, not 
against them. It is to be expected that an event unique in the 
world's history should be marked by accompaniments partaking 
of its own character. The miracles are not every-day events, 
because the redemption of mankind is not an every-day event ; 
they belong to no cycle in the recurring phenomena of nature, 
because Christ has not often suffered since the foundation of the 



Essay I.] 



ON MIEACLES. 



11 



world. Bound this great fact of man's redemption the accessory 
features of that wondrous narrative are grouped and clustered as 
around their proper centre ; no longer the uncouth prodigies of 
the kingdom of Nature, but the fitting splendours of the king- 
dom of Grace. It was meet that He who came as the conqueror 
of sin and death, who had power to lay down His life, and power 
to take it again, should come also as the Lord of Body and the 
Lord of Spirit, having power over the elements of matter and 
over the thoughts of men's minds ; foretold by predictions which 
no human wisdom could have suggested, testified to by works 
which no human power could have accomplished. Viewed as 
part of the scheme of Bedemption, the marvels of the Scripture 
narrative are no longer isolated and unmeaning anomalies, but 
a foreordained and orderly system of powers, working above the 
ordinary course of nature because their end is above the ordinary 
course of nature. The incongruity, the anomaly, would be if 
they were not there — if the salvation of the souls of men were to 
be brought about by no higher means than those which minister 
to their bodily appetites and material comforts. The daily wants 
of the individual, or the progressive culture of the race, may be 
provided for or advanced by laws which work unceasingly from 
day to day, and from generation to generation ; but we seek no 
recurring law of the Scripture miracles, because we expect no 
recurrence of that fact to which all Scripture bears witness. 

8. The above remarks, though only preliminary to the main 
question, are necessary in order to shew what is the real point 
to be established, if the belief in the supernatural is to be over- 
thrown. It is not the rarity of miracles — no one asserts them 
to be common : it is not their general improbability — no one 
asserts them to be generally probable : it is not that they need 
an extraordinary testimony as compared with other events — 
such a testimony we assert that they have. It is neither more 
nor less than their impossibility — an impossibility to be esta- 
blished on scientific grounds, such as no reasonable man would 
reject in any other case ; grounds such as those on which we 
believe that the earth goes round the sun, or that chemical 
elements combine in definite proportions. In this point of view 
the argument is altogether of a general character, and is un- 
affected by any peculiarities of probability or testimony which 
may distinguish one miraculous narrative from another. If the 



12 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



progress of physical or metaphysical science has shewn beyond 
the possibility of reasonable doubt that miracles are impossible — 
if, as seems to be the tendency of a recent argument, the asser- 
tion of a miracle is now known to be as absurd as the assertion 
that two and two make five* — it is idle to attempt a comparison 
between greater or less degrees of probability or testimony. 
The preceding observations will in that case only serve to shew 
what it is that Ave have to surrender, and to rescue the inquiry 
from the particular fallacy which seeks to underrate its import- 
ance by representing it as only affecting the accidents and 
excrescences of Christianity. Let us, at the outset, be clearly 
convinced of the vital importance of the question, in order that 
we may enter on its examination prepared, if necessary, to sacri- 
fice our most valued convictions at the demand of truth, but, at 
the same time, so convinced of their value as to be jealous of 
sacrificing them to anything but truth. 

9. The inquiry concerning the possibility of miracles in general 
(as distinguished from that which concerns the credibility of the 
Scripture miracles in particular) involves two distinct questions, 
which must be considered separately from each other. The first 
of these questions relates to the position occupied by miracles 
with reference to experience and to the empirical laws of matter ; 
the second relates to their position with reference to philoso- 
phical conceptions of God's nature and attributes. It is indis- 
pensable to a clear understanding of the subject that these two 
questions should be kept apart from each other ; though it will 
be necessary, in discussing the first, to take for granted some 
conclusions which will afterwards have to be established in con- 
nection with the second. Let us then assume, for the present, 
that we are justified in conceiving God as a Person, and in 
speaking of His nature and operations in the language which we 
should employ in describing the analogous qualities and actions 
of men. We shall speak, as theists in general are accustomed 



* See ' Essays and Keviews,' p. 141. 
It is astonishing that this acute author 
should not have seen the absurdity of 
introducing this statement in connec- 
tion with testimony. No witness could 
possibly see two and two make rive, or 
four, or any number, in the abstract ; he 
must see it in connection with certain 



visible objects. Put the case in its only 
possible form : — let a man say that he 
had seen two balls, and then two more, 
put together, and five balls produced 
from them; and, instead of an impossi- 
bility, we have but the commonest of 
jugglers' tricks. 



Essay I.] 



ON MIRACLES. 



13 



to speak, of the will, and the purpose, and the design of God; of 
the contrast between His general and special providence ; of His 
government of the world and control over its laws ; reserving 
for a subsequent inquiry the vindication of these and similar ex- 
pressions from a philosojDhical point of view. 

10. The argument which denies the possibility of miracles, 
on the ground of the uniformity of nature, may be considered 
under two heads : first, as regards the general conception of a 
system of natural laws; and, secondly, as regards the special 
experience of the mode in which those laws are manifested. The 
former may be fairly stated in the words of Hume, whose reason- 
ing has received no substantial addition from the labours of 
subsequent writers on the same side : "A miracle is a violation 
of the laws of nature ; and as a firm and unalterable experience 
has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the 
very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from expe- 
rience can possibly be imagined."* The argument, as thus 
stated, was just as strong or just as weak at the day when it was 
written as at the present time : it has received no additional 
strength from the progress of science during the interval, — 
indeed it is hard to see how the evidence of " a firm and unalter- 
able experience," if such existed at any time, is capable of 
being made stronger. No scientific man in the last century had 
any doubt that the sensible phenomena which came under his 
own experience and that of his contemporaries were owing to 
some natural cause acting by some natural law, whether the 
actual cause and law were known or unknown. The nature of 
this conviction is not altered by any subsequent increase in the 
number of known as compared with unknown causes: the 
general conception of "a firm and unalterable experience" is 
wide enough to contain all discoveries anticipated in the future, 
as well as those already made. 

11. In one respect, indeed, the advance of physical science 
tends to strengthen rather than to weaken our conviction of the 
supernatural character of the Christian miracles. In whatever 
proportion our knowledge of physical causation is limited, and the 
number of unknown natural agents comparatively large, in the 
same proportion is the probability that some of these unknown 



* ' Philosophical Works,' vol. iv„ p. 133. 



14 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



causes, acting in some unknown manner, may have given rise 
to the alleged marvels. But this probability diminishes when 
each newly-discovered agent, as its properties become known, 
is shewn to be inadequate to the production of the supposed 
effects, and as the residue of unknown causes, which might 
produce them, becomes smaller and smaller. We are told, 
indeed, that "the inevitable progress of research must, within 
a longer or shorter period, unravel all that seems most mar- 
vellous ;" >:< but we may be permitted to doubt the relevancy of 
this remark to the present case, until it has been shewn that the 
advance of science has in some degree enabled men to perform 
the miracles performed by Christ. When the inevitable pro- 
gress of research shall have enabled men of modern times 
to give sight to the blind with a touch, to still tempests with 
a word, to raise the dead to life, to die themselves, and to rise 
again, we may allow that the same causes might possibly have 
been called into operation, two thousand years earlier, by some 
great man in advance of his age. But until this is done, the 
unravelling of the marvellous in other phenomena only serves 
to leave these mighty works in their solitary grandeur, as 
wrought by the linger of God, unapproached and unapproach- 
able by all the knowledge and all the power of man. 

12. We have already observed that there is one kind of testi- 
mony which can reach to the supernatural ; namely, the tes- 
timony of the person who himself performs the work; and we 
may now add that the fact of a work being done by human 
agency places it, as regards the future progress of science, in a 
totally different class from mere physical phenomena. The 
appearance of a comet, or the fall of an aerolite, may be 
reduced by the advance of science from a supposed supernatural 
to a natural occurrence ; and this reduction furnishes a reason- 
able presumption that other phenomena of a like character will 
in time meet with a like explanation. But the reverse is the 
case with respect to those phenomena which are narrated as 
having been produced by personal agency. In proportion as the 
science of to-day surpasses that of former generations, so is the 
improbability that any man could have done in past times, by 
natural means, works which no skill of the present age is able 



* 'Essays and Eeviews,' p. 109. 



Essay I.] 



ON" MIEACLES. 



15 



to imitate. Tlie two classes of phenomena rest in fact on 
exactly opposite foundations. In order that natural occurrences, 
taking place without human agency, may wear the appearance 
of prodigies, it is necessary that the cause and manner of their 
production should be Unknoivn ; and every advance of science 
from the unknown to the known tends to lessen the number of 
such prodigies by referring them to natural causes, and increases 
the probability of a similar explanation of the remainder. But 
on the other hand, in order that a man may perform mar- 
vellous acts by natural means, it is necessary that the cause and 
manner of their production should be known by the performer; 
and in this case every fresh advance of science from the un- 
known to the known diminishes the probability that what is 
unknown now could have been known in a former age. 

13, The effect therefore of scientific progress, as regards the 
Scriptural miracles, is gradually to eliminate the hypothesis 
which refers them to unknown natural causes, and to reduce the 
question to the following alternative : Either the recorded acts 
were not performed at all (in which case it is idle to talk of the 
probable " honesty or veracity " of the witnesses *), or they were 
performed, as their authors themselves declare, by virtue of a 
supernatural power, consciously exercised for that very purpose. 
The intermediate theory, which attempts to explain them as 
distorted statements of events reducible to known natural causes, 
has been tried already, in the scheme of Paulus, and has failed 
so utterly as to preclude all expectation of its revival, even 
in the land of its birth. There remains only the choice between 
a deeper faith and a bolder unbelief; between accepting the 
sacred narrative as a true account of miracles actually per- 
formed, and rejecting it as wholly fictitious and incredible ; 
whether the fiction be attributed to the gradual accretion of 
mythical elements, or (for a later criticism has come back again 
to the older and more intelligible theory t) to the conscious 
fabrication of a wilful impostor. 

14. The argument of Hume, which may be taken as the repre- 



* See ' Essays and Beviews,' p. 106. 

f In this way the mythical theory of 
Strauss, after having overthrown the 
naturalistic theory of Paulus, has itself 
in turn been subjected to the criticism 



of Bruno Bauer, who rejects the l^po- 
thesis of a traditional origin of the 
Gospels, in favour of that which as- 
cribes them to deliberate fabrication. 



16 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



sentative of all those which rest merely on the general concep- 
tion of laws of nature, was refuted long ago by one who wrote 
as the advocate of his teaching in some other respects.* A 
miracle is not "a violation of the laws of nature," in any sense 
in which such a violation is impossible or inconceivable. It is 
simply the introduction of a new agent, possessing new powers, 
and therefore not included under the rules generalized from 
a previous experience. Its miraculous character, distinguishing 
it from mere new discoveries in nature, consists in the fact that 
the powers in question are supposed to be introduced for a 
special purpose, and to be withdrawn again when that purpose is 
accomplished, and thus to be excluded from the field of future 
observation and investigation. But the supposition of such 
powers need not imply any violation of the present laws observed 
by present natural agents. The laws of nature, in the only 
sense of the phrase which is relevant to the present argument, 
are simply general statements concerning the powers and pro- 
perties of certain classes of objects which have come under our 
observation. They say nothing about the powers and properties 
of other objects or classes of objects which have not been 
observed, or which have been observed with a different result. 
There are laws, for instance, of one class of material agents 
which do not apply to another ; and there are laws of matter in 
general which are not applicable to mind ; and so there may be 
other orders -of beings of which we have no knowledge, the laws 
of whose action may be different from all that we know of mind 
or body. A violation of the laws of nature, in this sense of the 
expression, would take place if, in two cases in which the cause 
or antecedent fact were exactly the same, the effect or con- 
sequent fact were different. But no such irregularity is asserted 
by the believer in miracles. He does not assert that miracles 
are produced by the abnormal action of natural and known 
causes — on the contrary, he expressly maintains that they are 
produced by a special interposition of Divine Power ; and that 
such an interposition, constituting in itself a different cause, 
may reasonably be expected to be followed by a different effect. 
15. So far then as a miracle is regarded as the operation of a 



* See Brown on Cause and Effect, 
Note E. I have borrowed the leading 
idea of Brown's argument, though dis- 



senting from some of his details, and 
therefore unable to adopt his exact 
language. 



Essay I.] 



ON MIRACLES. 



17 



special cause, producing a special effect, it offers no antagonism 
to that general uniformity of nature, according to which the 
same effects will always follow from the same causes. The 
opposition between science and miracle, if any exist, must be 
sought in another quarter ; namely, in the assumption (provided 
that such an assumption is warranted by science) that the intro- 
duction of a special cause is itself incredible. The ground of 
such an assumption appears to lie in the hypothesis that the 
existing forces of nature are so mutually related to each other 
that no new power can be introduced without either disturbing 
the whole equilibrium of the universe, or involving a series of 
miracles, coextensive with the universe, to counteract such 
disturbance. This seems to be the meaning of the following 
observation by a recent writer : — " In an age of physical research 
like the present, all highly cultivated minds and duly advanced 
intellects have imbibed, more or less, the lessons of the inductive 
philosophy, and have at least in some measure learned to appre- 
ciate the grand foundation conception of universal law — to 
recognise the impossibility even of any two material atoms sub- 
sisting together without a determinate relation — of any action 
of the one or the other, whether of equilibrium or of motion, 
without reference to a physical cause — of any modification what- 
soever in the existing conditions of material agents, unless 
through the invariable operation of a series of eternally impressed 
consequences, following in some necessary chain of orderly con- 
nexion — however imperfectly known to us." * 

This operation of a series of eternally impressed consequences 
could hardly be described more graphically or forcibly than in 
the following words of a great German philosopher : — " Let us 
imagine, for instance, this grain of sand lying some few feet 
further inland than it actually does. Then must the storm- 
wind that drove it in from the sea-shore have been stronger than 
it actually was. Then must the preceding state of the atmo- 
sphere, by which this wind was occasioned and its degree of 
strength determined, have been different from what it actually 
was ; and the previous changes which gave rise to this particular 
weather^ and so on. We must suppose a different temperature 
from that which really existed, and a different constitution of 



* ' Essays and Keviews/ p. 133. 



18 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



the bodies which influenced this temperature. The fertility or 
barrenness of countries, the duration of the life of man, depend, 
unquestionably, in a great degree, on temperature. How can 
you know — since it is not given us to penetrate the arcana of 
nature, and it is therefore allowable to speak of possibilities — 
how can you know that in such a state of the weather as we 
have been supposing, in order to carry this grain of sand a few 
yards further, some ancestor of yours might not have perished 
from hunger, or cold, or heat, long before the birth of that son 
from whom you are descended ; that thus you might never have 
been at all ; and all that you have ever done, and all that you 
ever hope to do in this world, must have been hindered, in order 
that a grain of sand might lie in a different place?"* 

16. Without attempting to criticise the argument as thus elo- 
quently stated, let us make one alteration in the circumstances 
supposed — an alteration necessary to make it relevant to the 
present question. Let us suppose that the grain of sand, instead 
of being carried to its present position by the wind, has been 
placed there by a man. Is the student of physical science 
prepared to enumerate a similar, chain of material antecedents, 
which must have been other than they were, before the man 
could have chosen to deposit the grain of sand on any other spot 



* Fichte, 'Die Bestimmung des 
Mensehen,' Werke, ii., p. 178. For the 
translation I am indebted to an excel- 
lent American work, which deserves to 
be better known in this country, and to 
which I take this opportunity of ex- 
pressing my own obligations — ' The 
Principles of Metaphysical and Ethical 
Science,' by my friend Professor Bowen, 
of Harvard College. 

Schleiermacher (' Der Christliche 
Glaube,' § 47, p. 260) expresses in ge- 
neral terms, and with express reference 
to miracles, the same view which Fichte 
has exhibited by an instance in relation 
to necessity in general. " A miracle," 
he says, "has a positive relation, by 
which it extends to all that is future, 
and a negative relation, which in a cer- 
tain sense affects all that is past. In 
so far as that does not follow which 
would have followed according to the 
natural connection of the aggregate of 
finite causes, in so far an effect is hin- 
dered, not by the influence of other 
natural counteracting causes belonging 



to the same series, but notwithstanding 
the concurrence of all effective causes 
to the production of the effect. Every- 
thing, therefore, which from all past 
time contributed to this effect is in a cer- 
tain measure annihilated; and instead 
of the interpolation of a single super- 
natural agent into the course of nature, 
the whole conception of nature is de- 
stroyed. On the positive side, some- 
thing takes place which is conceived as 
incapable of following from the aggre- 
gate of finite causes. But, inasmuch 
as this event itself now becomes an 
actual link in the chain of nature, every 
future event must be other than it would 
have been had this one miracle not 
taken place. Every miracle thus not 
only destroys the original order of na- 
ture for ever after ; but each later mi- 
racle destroys the earlier ones, so far as 
these have become parts of the series 
of effective causes." The whole ar- 
gument, as Kothe has observed, rests 
on the assumption of absolute deter- 
minism. 



Essay I.] 



ON MIRACLES. 



19 



than that on which it is now lying? Such a conclusion has 
indeed been maintained in general terms, without any specifica- 
tion of antecedents, by the advocates of Fatalism ; and it is main- 
tained in the continuation of the passage from which the above 
extract is taken.* But the question is, not whether such a con- 
clusion has been asserted, as many other absurdities have been 
asserted, by the advocates of a theory ; t but whether it has been 
established on such scientific grounds as to be entitled to the 
assent of all duly cultivated minds, whatever their own consci- 
ousness may say to the contrary. J The most rigid prevalence 
of law and necessary sequence among purely material pheno- 
mena may be admitted without apprehension by the firmest 
believer in miracles, so long as that sequence is so interpreted 
as to leave room for a power iu dispensable to all moral obliga- 
tion and to all religious belief —the power of Free Will in man. 

Deny the existence of a free will in man ; and neither the 
possibility of miracles, nor any other question of religion or 
morality, is worth contending about. Admit the existence of a 
free will in man ; and we have the experience of a power, ana- 
logous, however inferior, to that which is supposed to operate in 
the production of a miracle, and forming the basis of a legitimate- 
argument from the less to the greater. § In the Will of man we 
have the solitary instance of an Efficient Cause in the highest 
sense of the term, acting among and along with the physical 
causes of the material world, and producing results which would 
not have been brought about by any invariable sequence of 
physical causes left to their own action. We have evidence, also, 
of an elasticity, so to speak, in the constitution of nature, which 



* Not however as the author's own 
conclusion ; but as one of two conflict- 
ing doubts, to be afterwards resolved. 

f "Nihil tarn absurde dici potest, 
quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosopho- 
rum." — Cicero, Be Divinatione, ii., 58. 

% An attempt has recently been made 
to prove the non-existence of free will, 
by means of statistical calculations, 
shewing an average uniformity in the 
recurrence of certain actions in certain 
periods of time. The resemblance, how- 
ever, between statistical averages and 
natural laws fails at the very point on 
which the whole weight of the argu- 
ment rests. A natural law is valid for 
a class of objects, only because and in 



so far as it is valid for each individual 
of that class : the law of gravitation, 
for instance, is exhibited in a single 
apple as much as in an orchard ; and 
is concluded of the latter from being 
observed in the former. But the 
uniformity represented by statistical 
averages is one which is observed in 
masses only, and not in individuals ; 
and hence the law, if law it be, which 
such averages indicate, is one which 
ofiers no bar to the existence of in- 
dividual freedom, exercised, as all 
human power must be exercised, within 
certain limits. 

§ Compare Twesten, •Vorlesungen 
ueber die Dogmatik,' ii., p. 171. 

c 2 



20 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



permits the influence of human power on the phenomena of the 
world to be exercised or suspended at will, without affecting the 
stability of the whole. We have thus a precedent for allowing 
the possibility of a similar interference of a higher will on a 
grander scale, provided for by a similar elasticity of the matter 
subjected to its influence. Such interferences, whether produced 
by human or by superhuman will, are not contrary to the laws 
of matter ; but neither are they the result of those laws. They 
are the work of an agent who is independent of the laws, and 
who, therefore, neither obeys them nor disobeys them.* If a 
man, of his own free will, throws a stone into the air, the mo- 
tion of the stone, as soon as it has left his hand, is determined 
by a combination of purely material laws ; partly by the attrac- 
tion of the earth ; partly by the resistance of the air ; partly by 
the magnitude and direction of the force by which it was thrown. 
But by what law came it to be thrown at all? What law 
brought about the circumstance through which the aforesaid 
combination of material laws came into operation on this par- 
ticular occasion and in this particular manner? The law of 
gravitation, no doubt, remains constant and unbroken, whether 
the stone is lying on the ground or moving through the air ; but 
neither the law of gravitation, nor all the laws of matter put 
together, could have brought about this particular result, without 
the interposition of the free will of the man who throws the 
stone. Substitute the will of God for the will of man ; and the 
argument, which in the above instance is limited to the narrow 
sphere within which man's power can be exercised, becomes 
applicable to the whole extent of creation, and to all the pheno- 
mena which it embraces. 

17. The fundamental conception, which is indispensable to a 
true apprehension of the nature of a miracle, is that of the distinc- 
tion of Mind from Matter, and of the power of the former, as a 
personal, conscious, and free agent, to influence the phenomena 
of the latter. We are conscious of this power in ourselves ; we 
experience it in our everyday life ; but we experience also its 
restriction within certain narrow limits, the principal one being 
that man's influence upon foreign bodies is only possible through 
the instrumentality of his own body.f Beyond these limits is 



* See Kothe, in I Studien und Kriti- | f Twesten, ' Vorlesimgen ueber die 
ken,' 1858, p. 33. | Dogmatik,' i. p. 368. 



Essay I.] 



ON MIRACLES. 



21 



the region of the miraculous. In at least the great majority of 
the miracles recorded in Scripture, the supernatural element 
appears, not in the relation of matter to matter, but in that of 
matter to mind ; in the exercise of a personal power transcend- 
ing the limits of man's will. They are not so much supermaterial 
as superhuman. Miracles, as evidences of religion, are connected 
with a teacher of that religion ; and their evidential character 
consists in the witness which they bear to him as " a man 
approved of God by miracles and wonders and signs, which God 
did by him." He may make use of natural agents, acting by 
their own laws, or he may not : on this question various con- 
jectures may be hazarded, more or less plausible. The miracle 
consists in his making use of them, so far as he does so, under 
circumstances which no human skill could bring about. When a 
sick man is healed, or a tempest stilled, by a Avord, the mere 
action of matter upon matter may possibly be similar to that 
which takes place wheu the same effects occur in a natural 
way : the miracle consists in the means by which that action is 
brought about. And those means, we are assured by the word 
of the Teacher himself, are nothing less than the power of 
God, vouchsafed for the express purpose of bearing witness 
that God has sent him. Is it more reasonable, taking the 
whole evidence into account, to believe his word ; or to sup- 
pose, either that the works were not done at all, or that they 
were done by a scientific deception ? This is the real question 
to be decided. 

If, indeed, we include, under the term nature, all that is po- 
tential, as well as all that is actual, in the constitution of the 
world — all that can be brought about in it by divine power, as 
well as all that is brought about in it by physical causes, — in 
such an extended sense of the term, a miracle, like any other 
occurrence, may be included within the province of nature. We 
may, doubtless, believe that God, from the beginning, so ordered 
the constitution of the world as to leave room for the exercise of 
those miraculous powers which He foresaw would at a certain 
time be exercised ; just as He has left similar room for the ex- 
ercise, within narrower limits, of the human will. In this sense, 
some of the scholastic divines maintained, with reason, that a 
miracle is contrary to nature only in so far as nature is regarded 
as an active manifestation, not in so far as it is regarded as a 



22 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



passive recipient of power.* If this distinction is once clearly 
understood, the question, whether miracles may be represented as 
the result of law, or not, is a mere verbal question, which is only 
important from its liability to be mistaken for a real one. 
Properly speaking, a natural effect is not produced by a law, but 
by an agent acting according to a law. Every natural phe- 
nomenon has its physical cause in some antecedent natural 
phenomenon which it regularly follows ; and the laws of nature 
are merely classifications of some of these sequences with others 
of a similar character ;t or, as they have been aptly called, "the 
uniformities which exist among natural phenomena, when re- 
duced to their simplest expression."! In this sense, miracles 
cannot be referred to a natural law, known or unknown; for 
they do not resemble any sequence of one sensible phenomenon 
from another; nor can any sensible phenomenon or group of 
phenomena be pointed out, or even supposed to exist, the occur- 
rence of which would be invariably followed by such results. 
But if the term law be used in a different sense, to denote a 
method or plan conceived in the mind of an intelligent Being ; 
and if, by referring miracles to a law, no more is meant than 
that they, like other events, formed part of God's purpose from 
the beginning, and were the result, not of sudden caprice, but of 
a preordained plan, by which provision was made for them, that 
they should be wrought at their proper time and place without 
disturbing the economy of the universe, — such an expression, 
allowing for the necessary imperfection of all human terms 
when applied to divine things, is perhaps the most true and 
reverent conception of these events which we are capable of 



* This is clearly expressed in the lan- 
guage of Alexander ab Ales, ' Summa,' 
p. ii., qu. xlii., numb, v., art. 5 : — "Est 
enim potentia activa, et est potentia sus- 
ceptiya, et est potentia aptata et po- 
tentia non aptata. Et est potentia ac- 
tiva tarn naturae inferioris quam supe- 
rioris ; susceptiva autem naturse infe- 
rioris. Et verum est quod quicquid 
est Deo possibile secundum potentiam 
activam, est naturse possibile, non sim- 
pliciter, sed secundum potentiam sus- 
ceptivam ; et hoc est dicta possibilitas ; 
sed non secundum activam potentiam, 
nec secundum aptatam." A similar 
view is held by Albertus Magnus, 



' Summa,' p. ii., tract viii., qu. xxxi. ; and 
by Aquinas, in 1 Sent., dist. xlii., qu. ii., 
art. 2. See also Neander, ' Church His- 
tory,' vol. viii. p. 161, Eng. tr., ed. Bohn. 

f " No further insight into why the 
apple falls is acquired by saying it is 
forced to fall, or it falls by the force 
of gravitation : by the latter expression 
we are enabled to relate it most usefully 
to other phenomena ; but we still know 
no more of the particular phenomena 
than that under certain circumstances 
the apple does fall." — Grove on the Cor- 
relation of Physical Forces, p. 18, 3rd 
edition. 

% Mill's ' Logic,' vol. i. p. 385. 



Essay L] 



ON MIRACLES. 



23 



forming during this present life; though, like other analogies 
transferred from the human mind to the Divine, it is the object 
rather of religious belief than of philosophical speculation. 

18. Our argument has hitherto proceeded on the assumption 
that we are justified in regarding the visible world as under the 
government of a personal God, and in speaking of His acts and 
purposes in language which implies an analogy between the 
Divine mind and the human. It now becomes necessary to make 
some remarks in vindication of the assumption itself, which has 
been included by recent criticism in the same condemnation with 
the consequences which we have endeavoured to deduce from it. 
Of the argument from design, " as popularly pursued," we are 
told that it Ff proceeds on the analogy of a personal agent, whose 
contrivances are limited by the conditions of the case and the 
nature of his materials, and pursued by steps corresponding to 
those of human plans and operations: — an argument leading 
only to the most unworthy and anthropomorphic conceptions."* 
We are told, again, that " to attempt to reason from law to voli- 
tion, from order to active power, from universal reason to distinct 
personality, from design to self-existence, from intelligence to 
infinite perfection, is in reality to adopt grounds of argument 
and speculation entirely beyond those of strict philosophical in- 
ference."! We are told, again, that " the simple argument from 
the invariable order of nature is wholly incompetent to give us 
any conception whatever of the Divine Omnipotence, except as 
maintaining, or acting through, that invariable universal system 
of physical order and law ;" and that " a theism of Omnipotence in 
any seme deviating from the order of nature must be entirely de- 
rived from other teaching."! In order to test the value of these 



* Powell, t Order of Nature,' p. 237. 
It is natural to turn to this more elabo- 
rate work, published but a short time 
before the ' Essays and Beviews,' as the 
most probable source from which to 
complete or explain anything which 
seems defective or obscure in the au- 
thor's contribution to the latter volume. 
At the same time it is but just to call 
attention to some indications of a very 
different and a far truer view, in an 
earlier work by the same writer ; as in the 
following passage, which I venture to 
cite, though unable to reconcile it with 
his later language : — " It is by analogy 



with the exercise of intellect, and the 
volition, or power of moral causation, of 
which we are conscious within our- 
selves, that we speak of the Supreme 
Mind, and Moral Cause of the universe, 
of whose operation, order, arrangement, 
and adaptation are the external mani- 
festations. Order implies what by ana- 
logy we call intelligence : subserviency 
to an observed end implies intelligence 
foreseeing, which, by analogy, we call 
design." — On the Spirit of the Inductive 
Philosophy, p. 166. 

t Powell, ' Order of Nature,' p. 244. 

% Ibid., p. 247. 



24 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



and similar arguments, it will be necessary that we should clearly 
understand what this other teaching is, and what it teaches us ; 
as well as the relation in which it stands to the generalizations 
and inductions of physical science. 

In examining this question, we are not directly concerned 
with the higher inquiry regarding the degree and character of 
man's knowledge of God, as a whole and from whatever source 
derived, in its relation to the absolute essence of its Divine 
Object, and to the necessary limits of man's faculties. The diffi- 
culties connected with metaphysical theories of the Absolute and 
Infinite, which have driven so many speculative minds into the 
extravagances of Pantheism, do not affect our present argument. 
How any relation between the infinite and the finite can be con- 
ceived as existing ; — how God can be contemplated as acting in 
time at all, whether in connection with the phenomena of the 
material world, or with the thoughts and feelings of men: — 
questions of this kind are equally applicable to every positive 
conception of Divine Providence which we are capable of forming, 
and have no direct bearing on the peculiar claims of one class 
of such conceptions as compared with another. The general 
answer to such difficulties is to be found in the confession of our 
ignorance as regards the mystery from which they spring and on 
winch their solution depends ; but this ignorance, arising as it 
does from the universal limits of human thought, has no special 
relation to one age or state of man's knowledge, more than to 
another, and is not removed by any advance in those depart- 
ments which fall within his legitimate field. Pantheistic 
speculation has flourished with much the same result, or want of 
result, in the earliest and in the latest days of philosophy, in 
ancient India and in modern Germany ; and if any advance is 
to be expected in relation to the questions with which such 
speculation deals, it is probably to be looked for, not in the fuller 
solution of the questions themselves, but in the clearer appre- 
hension of the reasons why they are insoluble. 

The question now before us is of another character. It relates 
to that knowledge of God which, be it more or less philosophic- 
ally perfect, is that which practically determines the thoughts 
and feelings and actions of the majority of mankind ; being 
connected with facts of their daily experience, and with ideas 
intimately associated with those facts. And the form in which 



Essay I.] 



OX MIRACLES. 



25 



it meets us at present may be expressed as follows: — Is the 
truest and highest conception of Gocl to which man can practi- 
cally attain with his present faculties that which is suggested by 
the observation of Law and Order, as existing in the material 
world ? or is there a higher conception, derived from a different 
class of objects, by which the errors of an exclusively physical 
theology may be discovered and corrected ? 

19. Eeduced to its simplest terms, the question really stands 
thus : — Is Matter or Mind the truer image of God ? We are 
told, indeed, " that the study of physical causes is the sole real 
clue to the conception of a moral cause ; and that physical 
order, so far from being opposed to the idea of supreme in- 
telligence, is the very exponent of it."* "We are referred to 
"the grand contemplation of cosmical order and unity" as 
furnishing "proofs of the ever-present mind and reason in 
nature ;"| but we have yet to learn what is the exact process 
by which the desired conclusion is elicited from the premises. 

20. In opposition to these statements I do not hesitate to 
repeat, with a very slight modification, the words of Sir William 
Hamilton, " that the class of phenomena which requires that kind 
of cause we denominate a Deity is exclusively given in the phe- 
nomena of mind ; that the phenomena of matter, taken by them- 
selves (you will observe the qualification, — taken by themselves), 
do not warrant any inference to the existence of a Gocl."J The 
argument which would deduce the conception of God solely 
from physical causation bears witness, in the very words in 
which it is announced, to its own imperfection. The very names 
of law, and order, and came, had a literal before they had a 
figurative meaning, and are borrowed, in common with the 
whole phraseology of causation, by the sciences of invariable 
succession, from those of moral action and obligation. We dis- 
cern Law as Law, solely by means of the personal consciousness 
of duty ; we gain the conception, not by the external observa- 
tion of what is, but by the internal apprehension of what ought 
to be. We discern Causation, as Causation, solely in and by 
the productive energy of the personal will, — the one solitary 
fact of human experience in which is presented the consciousness 
of effort, — of power in action, exerting itself to the production 



* Powell, * Order of Nature,' p. 235. I % ' Lectures on Metaphysics,' vol. i., 
f Ibid., p. 238. J p. 26. 



26 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



of an effect. We discern Order, as Order, only in so far as we 
conceive the many as constituting the One, — the varied pheno- 
mena of sense as combined into a single whole; and the ideas 
of unity and totality are given only in the personal consciousness, 
■ — in the immediate perception of the one indivisible Self, and 
its several modes of conscious existence.* "What do we mean 
when we speak of the Order of Nature as implying a presiding 
Mind ? The language is unintelligible, save as interpreted by 
what the personal consciousness tells us of our own mind and 
its control over the objects that are under its dominion. In the 
little world of man's thought and its objects, that Order, that 
System from which the Cosmos derives its name, — that Unity 
which binds together the diverse elements into a consistent 
whole, — is the factor contributed by the mind to its objects, — 
the product of Intelligence, comprehending, arranging, general- 
izing, classifying. Without this action of mind upon its objects, 
the little world of each man's knowledge would be, not a 
Cosmos, but a Chaos, — not a system of parts in mutual relation 
to each other, but an endless succession of isolated phantoms, 
coming and going one by one. It is from this little world of 
our own consciousness, with its many objects, marshalled in their 
array under the rule of the one conscious Mind, that we are led 
to the thought of the great universe beyond, — that we conceive 
this also as a world of Order, and as being such by virtue of its 
relation to an ordering and presiding Mind. Design, Purpose, 
Kelation, of parts to a whole, of means to an end, — these con- 
ceptions, borrowed from the world of mind, can alone give 
order and unity to the world of matter, by representing it as 
moulded and governed by a ruling and purposing Mind, the 
centre and the source of that relation which mind does not take 
from matter, but confers upon it. Through this alone can Chaos 
be conceived as Cosmos ; through this alone can the Many point 
to the One. 

21. But this is not all. The very conception of a Design in 
creation implies the existence of a Free Will in the Designer. 



* " Le moi est la seule unite qui nous 
soit clonnee immediatenient par la na- 
ture; nous ne larencontronsdans aucune 
des chose s que nos facultes observent. 
Mais l'entendement, qui la trouve en 



lui, la met hors de lui par induction, et 
d'un certain nombre des clioses coex- 
istantes il cree des unites artificielles/' 
— Boyer-Collard, in Jouffroy's transla- 
tion of Reid, vol. iv., p. 350. 



Essay I.] 



ON- MIRACLES. 



27 



If man were not conscious of a free will in himself, he could 
frame no designs, — he could conceive no purposes of his own ; 
and, without the assumption of an analogous Divine Will, there 
is no meaning in his language when he speaks of the Design or 
Purpose of God. But in conceiving God as a free agent, we 
necessarily conceive Him as a Person; and this conception 
places Him in a totally different light from that of a mere soul 
of the world, or intelligence manifested in a system of material 
phenomena. In conceiving God as a Person, we conceive Him 
as standing in a direct relation to that one object in the world 
which is most nearly akin to Himself, — the personal soul of 
man, by whom He is so conceived. The personality, and, as 
implied in the personality, the moral nature of God, is not, as 
it has sometimes been represented, an isolated conception, 
derived from a distinct class of facts, and superadded to another 
conception of a Deity derived from the order of nature :* it is 
the primary and fundamental idea of a God in any distinctive 
sense of the word, — an idea without which no religion and no 
theology, no feeling of a spiritual relation between God and 
man, and no conception of a mind superior to nature, can have 
any existence. To speak, in the language of modern pantheistic 
philosophy, of a Eeason or Thought in the universe, which first 
becomes conscious in man, is simply to use terms without a 
meaning; for we have no conception of reason or thought at 
all, except as a consciousness. And to speak, on the side of 
physical philosophy, of a Supreme Mind, evinced in the laws of 
matter, is, in like manner, to use terms which have no meaning 
until we have acquired a conception of what mind is from the 
consciousness of the mind within ourselves. Our primary 
religious consciousness is that of man's relation to God as a 
person to a person ; and, unless we begin with this and retain 



* "At the utmost," says Professor 
Powell, " a physico-theology can only 
teach a supreme mind evinced in the 
laws of the world of matter, and the 
relations of a Deity to physical things 
essentially as derived from physical 
law. A moral or metaphysical theo- 
logy (so far as it may be substantiated) 
can only lead us to a Deity related to 
mind, or to the moral order of the 
world." — Order of Nature, p. 245. 

I consider this separation between 



two sources of theology as fundamen- 
tally erroneous. I believe that man's 
conception of God as mind is primarily 
derived from the personal consciousness 
alone ; and that, however much it may 
be enlarged by the contemplation of 
material objects, it does not originate 
from them, and can only be legitimately 
applied to them in and by its primary 
characteristics of personality and a 
moral nature. 



28 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



it in our knowledge, the very name of God is unmeaning. If 
this be Anthropomorphism, it is, as Jacobi has said, an Anthro- 
pomorphism identical with Theism, and without which there 
remains nothing but Atheism or Fetichisru.* 

22. The following quotation from the same eloquent and pro- 
found philosopher is probably already familiar to many readers, 
but is too excellent in itself and too appropriate to the present 
argument to be omitted. 

"Nature conceals God; for, through her whole domain, 
Nature reveals only fate, only an indissoluble chain of mere 
efficient causes,! without beginning and without end, excluding, 
with equal necessity, both providence and chance. An inde- 
pendent agency, a free original commencement, within her 
sphere and proceeding from her powers, is absolutely impossible. 
Working without will, she takes counsel neither of the good nor 
of the beautiful ; creating nothing, she casts up from her dark 
abyss only eternal transformations of herself, unconsciously and 
without an end ; furthering, with the same ceaseless industry, 
decline and increase, death and life,— never producing what 
alone is of God and what supposes liberty, — the virtuous, the 
immortal. 

" Man reveals God ; for Man, by his intelligence, rises above 
Nature, and, in virtue of this intelligence, is conscious of himself 
as a power not only independent of, but opposed to, Nature, and 
capable of resisting, conquering, and controlling her. As man 
has a living faith in this power, superior to nature, which dwells 
in him, so has he a belief in God, a feeling, an experience of 
His existence. As he does not believe in this power, so does he 
not believe in God ; he sees, he experiences nought in existence 
but nature, — necessity, — fate."{ 

23. From the above principles it follows (to Use the words of 



* " Wir bekennen uns demnach zu 
einem von der Uebsrzeugung, dass der 
Mensch Gottes Ebeubild in sich trage — 
unzertrennlichenAnthropomorphisnius, 
und behaupten, ausser diesem Anthro- 
pomorphisms, der von jeher Theismus 
genannt wurde, ist nur Gotteslaugnung 
oder — Fetichismus." — Von den Gott- 
lichen Dingen, Werke, iii., p. 422. 

f The phrase efficient causes (wir- 
kende Ursachen), here and in a subse- 
quent quotation from the translator, 



must be understood in a different sense 
from that in which it is used by some 
modern writers, to denote metaphysical 
as distinguished from physical causes — 
a sense adopted above, p. 19. For the 
two senses of the phrase, see especially 
a note in Stewart's 4 Philosophy of the 
Active and Moral Powers,' book iii., 
ch. ii., Collected "Works, vii., p. 27. 

X Werke, iii., p. 425. Translated by 
Sir W. Hamilton, ' Lectures on Meta- 
physics,' vol. i., p. 40. 



Essay I.] 



ON MIRACLES. 



29 



Sir W. Hamilton) " that the universe is governed not only by- 
physical but by moral laws ;" and " that intelligence stands first 
in the absolute order of existence — in other words, that final 
preceded efficient causes."* But this involves, as a consequence, 
that the question concerning the possibility or probability of a 
miracle is to be judged, not merely from physical, but also, and 
principally, from moral grounds ; not merely from the evidence 
furnished by the phenomena of the material world, but also 
from that furnished by the religious nature of man, and by his 
relation to a God to whom that nature bears witness. It is 
altogether an erroneous view to represent the question between 
general law and special interposition as if it rested on me- 
chanical considerations only, — as if it could be judged by the 
difference between constructing a machine which, when once 
made, can go on continuously by its own power, and one which, 
at successive periods, requires new adjustments, f The miracle 
is not wrought for the sake of the physical universe, but for the 
sake of the moral beings within it ; and the question to be 
considered is not whether a divine interposition is needed to 
regulate the machinery of nature, but whether it is needed or 
adapted to promote the religious welfare of men. If the 
sj)iritual restoration of mankind has in any degree been 
promoted by means of a religion professing to have been 
introduced by the aid of miracles, and whose whole truth is 
involved in the truth of that profession, we have a sufficient 
reason for the miraculous interposition, superior to any that can 
be urged for or against it from considerations derived from the 
material world. The very conception of a revealed as dis- 
tinguished from a natural religion implies a manifestation of 
God different in kind from that which is exhibited by the 
ordinary course of nature ; and the question of the probability 
of a miraculous interposition is simply that of the probability of 
a revelation being given at all. In the words of Bishop Butler, 
" Kevelation itself is miraculous, and miracles are the proof of 
it."t 

24. As regards the general question of 'the possibility of miracles 



* * Lectures on Metaphysics,' vol. i., 
p. 28. 

- f This objection against miracles is 
urged by Voltaire, * Dictionnaire Philo- 



sophique,' v. ' Miracles,' and is answered 
by Bishop Van Mildert, 'Boyle Lec- 
tures,' Sermon xxi. 

% * Analogy,' part ii., ch. ii. 



30 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



(that of their reality must of course be determined by its own 
special evidence), Paley's criticism is, after all, the true one : — 
" Once believe that there is a God, and miracles are not 
incredible." For an impersonal God is no God at all ; and the 
conception of a personal God in relation to man necessarily 
involves that of a divine purpose, and of the manifestation of 
that purpose in time. Grant this, and there is no a priori 
reason why such a manifestation may not take place at one 
time as well as at another ; why the beginning of a spiritual 
system at one period may not be as credible as the beginning of 
a material system at another period. It would indeed be a 
precarious argument to attempt to reason positively from an 
a priori notion of the divine attributes to the necessity of creation 
or of revelation ; but the very conditions which render such an 
argument doubtful only increase the force of the negative 
caution, which, refusing to dogmatize on either side concerning 
what must be or must not be, is content to seek for such evidence 
as is within its reach concerning what is. 

25. With the question of the possibility of miracles is inti- 
mately connected that of their value as evidences. Both questions, 
indeed, must ultimately be decided on the same principle ; and 
the influence of that principle is probably at work, though 
unconsciously, in the minds of some who endeavour to regard 
the two inquiries as wholly distinct. Sometimes, indeed, we 
find both united, and apparently treated as parts of the same 
argument on the side of denial ; though it is obvious that, if the 
impossibility of miracles can once be shewn, there is no need of 
any inquiry into their comparative value. Nevertheless, as if 
the conclusiveness of the former argument were, after all, 
somewhat doubtful in the eyes of its advocates, we find it 
coupled with an attempt to disparage the value of the miracles 
as evidences, even supposing their reality. It is intimated that 
they are not so much evidences as objects of faith, invested with 
sanctity and exempted from criticism by virtue of the religious 
mysteries with which they are connected :* and approved 
divines are referred to as practically making the doctrine the 
real test of the admissibility of the miracles, and as acknow r - 
ledging the right of an appeal, superior to that of all miracles, 



* See ' Essays and Keviews,' p. 143. 



Essay I.] 



ON MIKACLES. 



31 



to our own moral tribunal.* The feeling which dictates this 
judgment is intelligible at least, if not excusable, as the result 
of a reaction against the opposite error of a former generation ; 
but, when the judgment is advanced, as it often is, not merely 
as an expression of the personal feelings of an individual, but as 
a general statement of the right grounds of belief, it is at best 
nothing more than an attempt to cure one evil by another, 
introducing a remedy, on the whole, worse than the disease. . 

Some of the questions introduced in this connection pro- 
perly belong to an earlier stage of our argument ; for though 
they have been treated by some writers as bearing on the evi- 
dential value of miracles, supposing their reality to be admitted, 
they more strictly relate to the previous inquiry concerning the 
grounds on which we believe miracles to have been wrought 
at all. Thus the assertion that the Gospel miracles are objects 
of faith is undoubtedly true ; but it is true in a sense which is 
by no means incompatible with their being also evidences j\ To 
us, in these latter days, as regards the grounds on which we 
believe the miracles to have taken place at all, they are u objects 
of faith " in that proper sense of the term faith in which it 
is opposed, not to reason, but to sight.% We were not eye- 
witnesses of the miracles : we know all that we know about 
them from the testimony of others ; and testimony of all kinds 
is an appeal to faith, as distinguished from sight, — prcesentia 
videntur, creduntur absentia.^ But to say that miracles are in 
this sense objects of faith, is a very different thing from 
making them exempt from criticism by virtue of the religious 
mysteries with which they are connected. The faith which 
is called into exercise is only that which is required in all 
admission of testimony, whether connected with religious 
mysteries or not ; which exists in all cases in which we accept, 
on the authority of others, statements which we are unable to 
verify by our own experience. 

26. The often-disputed question, whether the miracles prove the 
doctrine, or the doctrine the miracles, is also one which properly 



* 'Essays and Keviews,' pp. 121, 
122. 

f "When it is asserted that the mira- 
cles are objects, not evidences, of faith, 
it is obvious that the word faith is used 
in two different senses. In relation to 



objects, it means an act of belief; in 
relation to evidences, it means a doctrine 
to be believed. 

% 2 Cor. v. 7, "Wo walk by faith, 
not by sight." 

§ St. Augustine, Epist. cxlvii., c. 2. 



32 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



belongs to the earlier inquiry concerning the credibility of the 
miracles as facts, and which, like that of objects and evidences, 
derives a seeming plausibility from an epigrammatic antithesis 
of language covering a confusion of thought. There are cer- 
tain doctrines which must be taken into account in determining 
the question whether a true miracle — i.e. an interposition of 
Divine power — has taken place at all. If a teacher claiming to 
work miracles proclaims doctrines contradictory to previously 
established truths, whether to the conclusions of natural religion 
or to the teaching of a former revelation, such a contradiction is 
allowed, even by the most zealous defenders of the evidential 
value of miracles, to invalidate the authority of the teacher.* But 
the right conclusion from this admission is not that true miracles 
are invalid as evidences, but that the supposed miracles in this case 
are not true miracles at all ; i.e. are not the effects of Divine 
power, but of human deception or of some other agency. And 
the criterion, as has been often observed, is only of a negative 
character ; contradiction to known truth is sufficient to disprove 
a Divine mission ; but conformity to known truth is not sufficient 
to establish one.t And even the negative criterion, however 
valid as a general rule, is liable to error in its special applications. 
The certainty of the truths of natural religion does not guarantee 
the certainty of all the conclusions which this or that man 
believes to be truths of natural religion, any more than the 
infallibility of Scripture guarantees the infallibility of every man's 
interpretation of Scripture. God cannot contradict Himself, 



* Thus Clarke (' Evidence of Natural 
and Eevealed Eeligion,' Prop.xiv.) says, 
"If the doctrine attested by miracles 
be in itself impious, or manifestly tend- 
ing to promote vice, then without all 
question the miracles, how great soever 
they may appear to us, are neither 
worked by God Himself nor by His 
commission, because our natural know- 
ledge of the attributes of God, and of 
the necessary difference between good 
and evil, is greatly of more force to 
prove any such doctrine to be false 
than any miracles in the world can be 
to prove it true." But Clarke also 
shews that this admission is a very 
different thing from making the doc- 
trine the proof of the miracles ; that, on 
the contrary, the miracles are the proof 
of the doctrine, provided that the doc- 



trine he such as is capable of being 
proved by miracles. See also, on the 
same question, Bishop Sherlock, Dis- 
course x. ; Penrose, * On the Evidence 
of the Scripture Miracles,' p. 212. 

t Thus Bishop Atterbury, in his Ser- 
mon on ' Miracles the most proper way 
of proving the Divine Authority of any 
Eeligion,' says, " Though the badness 
of any doctrine, and its disagreeable- 
ness to the eternal rules of right reason, 
be a certain sign that it did not come 
from God, yet the goodness of it can 
be no infallible proof that it did." The 
same argument is handled in Eogers's 
' Sermons on the Necessity of Divine 
Eevelation,' pp. 60, 109, ed. 1757. See 
also Warburton, 1 Divine Legation,' b. 
ix., c. 5 ; Clarke, 1 Evidence,' Prop. ix. 



Essay I.] 



ON MIRACLES. 



33 



whether He teaches through nature or through revelation ; but 
man may misinterpret God's teaching through the one as well as 
through the other. 

27. In regarding the doctrinal criterion as properly relating 
to the question whether a true miracle has been wrought at all, 
we set aside, as unworthy of serious consideration, the supposition 
which has sometimes been advanced in favour of an opposite 
view ; namely, that real miracles may possibly be performed by 
evil spirits in behalf of a false doctrine. This supposition, whatever 
may be its value as a theme for argumentative ingenuity, is not 
one which we are practically called upon to consider by any of 
the actual circumstances with which we are concerned. The 
objections which may justly be urged against Farmer's argu- 
ment, when carried to the extent of denying the credibility of 
demoniacal miracles of any kind, do not apply to it when limited 
to such miracles as are wrought in evidence of a religion, and to 
the question, not of their theoretical possibility, but of their 
actual occurrence. It may be unsafe to reason a priori, from 
our conception of the Divine attributes, that the permission of 
such agency is inconceivable ; but we may fairly refuse to attach 
any practical importance to the supposition, until some evidence 
is brought forward to shew that it has actually been realized. 
It remains yet to be shewn that in all human experience any 
instance can be produced of a real miracle wrought by evil 
spirits for purposes of deception ; * and until some probable 
grounds can be alleged in behalf of the fact, we have not suffi- 
cient means of judging concerning the theory. Doubtless, if it 
is consistent with God's Providence to permit such a temptation, 
He will also, with the temptation, make a way for us to escape ; 
but what that way will be, or how far the temptation is con- 
sistent with God's Providence, we cannot decide beforehand : we 
must wait till some actual occurrence, with all its accompanying 
circumstances, comes before us. The only real question at issue 
is not whether Christianity is a revelation from God or a delusion 
of Satan ; — a question which no sane man at the present time 
would think worthy of a serious discussion ; but whether it is of 
God or of man; and, consequently, on what grounds and to 
what extent it is entitled to the acceptance of mankind. What 



* See Penrose, ' On the Evidence of the Scripture Miracles,' p. 23. 

D 



34 AIDS TO FAITH. . [Essay I. 

man lias taught, man may revise and improve. If the doctrines 
of Christianity are no otherwise of divine origin than as all 
human wisdom is the gift of God, they have, like other products 
of human wisdom, no further claim to be accepted than as they 
may be verified by the wisdom of later generations. In that 
case, we may listen to the teaching of Christ and His apostles, as 
we listen to the teaching of human philosophers, with respect 
and gratitude, but not necessarily with submission : we claim a 
right to judge and sift, and it may be to reject, as our own 
reason shall determine us, acknowledging no other authority 
than that which is due to the wise and good of every generation 
of mankind. But if, on the other hand, the doctrines are given 
to us by Divine revelation such as uo human wisdom can claim, 
they have a right to be received by virtue of the authority on 
which they rest, distinct from any which they may possess 
through their own intrinsic reasonableness or capability of veri- 
fication. Of such a Divine authority miracles are the natural 
and proper proof; — a proof which all men are disposed naturally 
and instinctively to admit in practice, whatever cavils may be 
raised against it on the ground of imaginary difficulties in 
theory. In the words of one of the ablest of the writers who 
have discussed this point, "All natural scepticism on the subject 
of miracles attaches to the question whether they were really 
performed, not, if performed, to the authority which they pos- 
sess." * For all real purposes of controversy, the question may 
be stated now, as it was stated by Gamaliel of old, whether the 
counsel and the work be of men or of God ; and the only serious 
inquiry that can be raised concerning the miracles of Scripture 
is whether they were wrought by the direct interposition of God, 
or were the result of human skill or other natural causes, — an 
other words, whether they were or were not really miracles at 
all. 

28. The question, then, only requires to be disentangled of 
its confusion, to be very briefly answered. If it is considered 
theoretically and in the abstract, with reference merely to 
the logical character of certain doctrines in themselves, and not 
to the circumstances and needs of men, we may divide, as is 
usually clone, the doctrines of religion into those which are and 



* Penrose, p.. 24. 



Essay I.] 



ON MIRACLES. 



35 



those which are not discoverable by human reason ; regarding 
the former as prior to revelation, and furnishing a negative 
criterion which no true revelation can contradict; while the 
latter are posterior to revelation, and rest immediately on the 
authority of a divinely commissioned Teacher, and mediately on 
the proofs of his divine mission, whatever these may be.* And 
it is at this stage of the inquiry that the question concerning the 
evidential value of miracles properly comes in. A teacher who 
proclaims himself to be specially sent by God, and whose 
teaching is to be received on the authority of that mission, 
must, from the nature of the case, establish his claim by proofs 
of another kind than those which merely evince his human 
wisdom or goodness. A superhuman authority needs to be 
substantiated by superhuman evidence ; and what is superhuman 
is miraculous. It is not the truth of the doctrines, but the 
authority of the teacher, that miracles are employed to prove ; 
and the authority being established, the truth of the doctrine 
follows from it. In this manner our Lord appeals to His 
miracles as evidences of His mission : ? The works which the 
Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear 
witness of me that the Father hath sent me."t It is easy to 
say that we might have known Jesus Christ to be the Son of 
God, had He manifested Himself merely as a moral teacher, 
without the witness of miracles. It is easy to say this, because 
it is impossible to prove it. We cannot reverse the facts of history : 
we cannot make the earthly life of Christ other than it was. 
As a matter of fact, He did unite miraculous powers with pure 
and holy doctrine ; and, as a matter of fact, He did appeal to 
His miracles in proof of His divine authority. The miracles are 
a part of the portrait of Christ : they are a part of that influence 
which has made the history of the Christian Church what it is. 
It is idle to speculate on what that history might have been, had 
that influence been different. We have to do with revelation 
as we have to do with nature, — as God has been pleased to 
make it, not as He might have made it, had His wisdom been 
as ours. 

Such, even at its very lowest estimate, is the evidential 
character of miracles from the abstract and theoretical point of 



* Compare Warburton, « Divine Legation,' b. ix., c. 5. , f St. John y. 36. 

D 2 



36 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay I. 



view. " The truths/' says Bishop Atterbury, " which are neces- 
sary in this manner to be attested are those which are of 
positive institution ; those which, if God had not pleased to 
reveal them, human reason could not have discovered ; and 
those which, even now they are revealed, human reason cannot 
fully account for and perfectly comprehend. Such, for example, 
are the doctrines of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, of the 
Kesurrection of the same Body, of the Distinction of Persons in 
the Unity of the Divine Essence, and of the Salvation of 
Mankind by the Blood and Intercession of Jesus. It is this 
kind of truths that God is properly said to reveal ; truths of 
which, unless revealed, we should have always continued 
ignorant ; and 'tis in order only to prove those truths to have 
been really revealed, that we affirm miracles to be necessary." * 

29. But practically, in reference to the actual condition and 
needs of men, the evidence of miracles has a far wider range, and 
includes all those doctrines, whether natural or revealed, which 
have at any time been taught or revived among men by the 
preaching of the Christian Faith. This has been pointed out, 
with his usual practical wisdom, by Bishop Butler. "It is 
impossible," he says, "to say who would have been able to have 
reasoned out that whole system which we call natural religion, 
in its genuine simplicity, clear of superstition; but there is 
certainly no ground to affirm that the generality could. If they 
could, there is no sort of probability that they would. Admitting 
there were, they would highly want a standing admonition to 
remind them of it, and inculcate it upon them." To the same 
effect he continues : " It may possibly be disputed how far 
miracles can prove natural religion; and notable objections 
may be urged against this proof of it, considered as a matter of 
speculation ; but, considered as a practical thing, there can be 
none. For suppose a person to teach natural religion to a 
nation who had lived in total ignorance or forgetfulness of it; 
and to declare he was commissioned by God to do so ; suppose 
him, in proof of his commission, to foretell things future, which 
no human foresight could have guessed at; to divide the sea 
with a word ; feed great multitudes with bread from heaven ; 

Lion// liixgu ieqaox) eni yd 'joqiij ■ .bobat iod -^aslbaHe'L- 



*' Miracles the proper way of proving I Sermons (1734), vol. i. p. 215. See 
the Divine Authority of any Religion,' | also Bishop Sherlock, Discourse x. 



Essay I.] 



ON MIRACLES. 



37 



cure all manner of diseases ; and raise the dead, even himself, 
to life : would not this give additional credibility to his teaching 
— a credibility beyond what that of a common man would have ; 
and be an authoritative publication of the law of nature, i.e. a 
new proof of it ? It would be a practical one, of the strongest 
kind, perhaps, which human creatures are capable of having 
given them." * 

In this passage, the good sense of Butler has solved the 
question in its practical aspect, leaving the theoretical difficulty 
in its proper insignificance. No doubt, if we are at liberty to 
suppose a totally different state of things from the actual one, 
we may deduce a great number of hypothetical consequences 
concerning what might have been the case, but is not. If all 
men possessed a perfect system of natural religion, no authori- 
tative publication of natural truths would be needed ; and no 
teaching which contradicted men's natural belief would have 
any claim to be received. And so, if all men were possessed of 
perfect bodily health, no medicine would be needed to give it 
them ; and any medicine which tended to alter their state of 
health would be injurious. Unhappily, both suppositions are 
untrue ; and the conclusions practically fall to the ground with 
them. It may be granted that the authority of which miracles 
are a proof is but an accidental and relative evidence of truths 
of this character. Still, the accident is one which has extended 
over the greater part of mankind ; and the relation is coexten- 
sive with it. And this consideration must serve to modify in 
practice the negative criterion which is allowed to be valid in 
theory. In whatever degree any man does not possess a perfect 
natural religion, in the same degree he is liable to error in 
judging of the truth of a revelation solely from internal 
evidence. And even the man who, in the present day, claims 
the right to exercise such a judgment, may be reminded that 
the knowledge on which his claim is based is in no small degree 
owing to that very authoritative teaching on which his judgment 
is to be passed : — direkaKrccre KaOairepel ra ircoXdpLa yevvydivra 
ttjv /ubrjTepa. " The fact," says Mr. Davison, " is not to be 
denied; the religion of Nature has had the opportunity of 
rekindling her faded taper by the Gospel light, whether 



* * Analogy,' part ii., cli. i. 



38 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay L 



furtively or unconsciously taken. Let her not dissemble the 
obligation and the conveyance, and make a boast of the 
splendour, as though it were originally her own, or had always 
in her hands been sufficient for the illumination of the world." * 

30. The whole question of the value of miracles as evidences 
of Christianity must, in fact, be answered by means of the same 
distinction on which depends the question of their credibility ; — 
the distinction, namely, between God's general manifestation 
of Himself in the ordinary course of nature, and His special 
manifestation of Himself by supernatural signs. Those who 
deny the existence of any special revelation of religious truths, 
distinct from that general sense in which man's reason itself and 
all that it can discover are the gifts of Him from whom every 
good thing comes ; — those who deny that any teaching has been 
made to man by special inspiration of particular teachers, in a 
sense different from that in which all holy desires, all good 
counsels, and all just works proceed from the inspiration of the 
Holy Spirit ; — such persons are only consistent when they deny 
that miracles have any value as evidences of religious truth, and 
are still more consistent if they deny that such works have ever 
been wrought. If religion teaches nothing but what every man, 
by God's grace, may discover, or at least verify, for himself, the 
distinction between natural and revealed religion ceases to exist, 
and with it the distinction between natural and supernatural 
evidences of the truth. If the ordinary witness of man's reason 
or conscience is sufficient for all purposes of religion, the 
extraordinary witness becomes superfluous if it agrees with this, 
and pernicious if it differs from it. But this absolute sufficiency 
of the natural reason is the very point which history and 
philosophy concur to call in question. 

31. The following words of a learned and thoughtful prelate 
of the English Church may be cited and adopted as ex- 
pressing the conclusions which I have endeavoured, however 
imperfectly, to establish in common with him : "Tt appears, then, 
on a review of the preceding arguments, that the Scripture 
miracles stand on a solid basis, which no reasoning can over- 
throw. Their possibility cannot be denied without denying the 
very nature of God as an all-powerful Being : their probability: 



* 'Discourses on Prophecy,' p. 6 (4th edition). 



Essay I.] 



ON MIRACLES. 



39 



cannot be questioned without questioning His moral perfections : 
and their certainty, as matters of fact, can only be invalidated 
by destroying the very foundations of all human testimony. 

" Upon these grounds we may safely leave the subject in the 
hands of any wise and considerate man : and we may venture 
to affirm that no person of such a character will, after an 
attentive examination of these points, ever suffer his faith in 
the miracles, by which the Divine authority of the Christian 
revelation is supported, to be shaken. Convinced that, by a 
fair chain of reasoning, every one who denies them must be 
driven to the necessity of maintaining atheistical principles, by 
questioning either the power, or wisdom, or goodness of the 
Creator, the true philosopher will yield to the force of this 
consideration, as well as to the overpowering evidences of the 
facts themselves ; and will thankfully accept the dispensation 
which God hath thus graciously vouchsafed to reveal. He will 
suffer neither wit, nor ridicule, nor sophistry, to rob him of this 
anchor of his faith; but will turn to his Saviour with the 
confidence so emphatically expressed by Nicodemus : ' Kabbi, 
we know that thou art a Teacher come from God ; foe no man 
can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with 
him.' %% 

To these remarks, which are applicable to every age and race 
of men to whom the Christian evidences may come, it may per- 
haps not be inappropriate to add a further observation having a 
more especial reference to ourselves. The very attacks which 
have been made, in the supposed interests of science, upon the 
miraculous element of the Gospel narrative, may themselves 
serve, if rightly considered, to give to that very element a new 
significance, and to point to a moral purpose more discernible 
now than of old. An age of advanced physical knowledge has 
its especial temptations, no less than its especial privileges. Few 
indeed, it is trusted, will be found to repeat what one great sci- 
entific teacher of the present century has been found to assert, 
that the heavens declare, not the glory of God, but only the 
glory of the astronomer. Yet this bold and profane language is 
only the extreme expression of a tendency against which an age 
like the present has especial need to watch and pray. Against 



* Van Mildert, f Boyle Lectures,' Sermon xxi. 



40 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I. 

such a tendency it is no small safeguard that men of science 
should be trained from their earliest childhood in records which 
at every page tell of the personal presence of Him by whom all 
things were made, manifested in direct control over the delegated 
workings of His visible creation. It is but one form of His per- 
petual presence with His Church, that in founding a Faith destined 
to ally itself with the intellectual cultivation of all succeeding 
generations, He should have founded it in such a manner as to 
furnish, in the record of its origin, a lesson of the spirit in which 
that cultivation should be pursued, and a safeguard against the 
perils to which it is especially exposed. If there are times when 
the very vastness of the material system which science discloses 
seems to thrust the Author of all to an almost infinite distance 
from us ; — if there are times when we feel almost tempted to 
echo the wish of the poet, to be " a Pagan suckled in a creed 
outworn," so that we might but have a clearer sight of the pre- 
sence of Deity among the phenomena of nature ; — if there are 
times when the heaven that is over our heads seems to be brass, 
and the earth that is under us to be iron, and we feel our hearts 
sink within us under the calm pressure of unyielding and un- 
sympathizing Law, as those of the disciples of old sank within 
them under the stormy violence of wind and wave ; — at such 
times we may learn our lesson and feel our consolation, as we 
turn to those vivid pictures which our Sacred Story portrays of 
the personal power of the Incarnate God visibly ruling His 
creation ; and may hear through them the present voice of Him 
who spake on the waters, " Be of good cheer ; it is I ; be not 
afraid." 



ESSAY II. 



ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF 
CHRISTIANITY. 



CONTENTS OF ESSAY II. 



1. Introduction. 

2. Reaction against the study of Evi- 

dences. 

3. Circumstances of the Infidel con- 

troversy in the 17th and 18th cen- 
turies. 

4. Change of position of Christian 

apologists occasioned by change 
of tactics of Infidels. 

5. Internal condition of the Church. 

6. Rise of the Methodist and Evan- 

gelical movement— its excesses. 

7. "Want of Church activity. 

8. The " New Birth " preached by 

Whitefield and the Wesleys. 

9. Decay of theological learning 

among the Evangelical leaders. 

10. Ultimate development of false prin- 

ciples when left unchecked. 

11. Influences loosing men's hold upon 

the Historical element in Chris- 
tianity — German Neology. 

12. Charms of the foreign literature — 

Influence of the new opinions 
on the current literature of the 
country — Religion regarded as an 
affair of sentiment. 

13. Inadequacy of the system to meet 

the mere moral wants of man — 
protest against the foundation of 
the whole theory. 



14. A religion disentangled from all 

historical inquiries, and commend- 
ing itself to the mind by its in- 
trinsic beauty and suitability to 
man's wants and wishes, is not 
Christianity. 

15. The essential connexion of Chris- 

tianity with the history of past 
ages advances civilization wher- 
ever Christianity prevails. 

16. Disadvantages of the mean and il- 

literate in judging of the historical 
evidences of Christianity. 

17. Direct evidence within the reach of 

the humbler classes. 

18. Development of critical inquiry 

abroad has diminished the diffi- 
culties of comparatively unlearned 
readers. 

19. Origin of the Christian religion not 

a very remote event — Absurdity of 
the mythical theory as applied to it. 

20. Strauss's ' Life of Jesus ' merely the 

working out of a foregone conclu- 
sion — Insufficiency of the theories 
of Strauss's successors — Causes 
and remedies of the present panic 
— Danger of concentrating a 
whole system of belief upon a 
single point — Romanist creed. 

21. Order in which sceptical objections 

are to be dealt with. 

22. Very little new matter to be pro- 

duced by Infidelity — Conclusion. 



ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF 
CHRISTIANITY. 



1. "Evidences of Christianity!" exclaims the late Mr. Cole- 
ridge in one of the most popular of his prose-works; "I am 

weary of the word. Make a man feel the want of it and 

yon may safely trust it to its own evidence." 

There can be little doubt, I think, that these words express 
the prevailing sentiments of a very considerable number of 
Christians at the present day ; and it cannot be denied that, for 
many years back, there has been a general distaste for that 
apologetic religious literature which was popular hi the last 
century. 

2. This has doubtless been greatly owing to a Reaction from the 
disproportionate attention paid to such literature by the Divines 
of a former age, and has taken place in virtue of that general 
rule which seems to ordain that an over value of any branch, of 
knowledge in one generation shall be attended by an unjust depreci- 
ation of it in the next. The argumentative value of things even 
so important as the evidences of religion may, unquestionably, 
engross the public mind too much ; and he who is continually 
occupied in contemplating and stating the proofs of its truth will 
fail of reaching the just standard of a Christian teacher, or a Chris- 
tian man. Such a person will be like a prince who employs all 
his time, and strength, and resources in raising fortresses about 
a territory which he does not carefully govern; or like a land- 
lord who lives but to accumulate muniments of an estate which 
he neglects to till. But the folly of such conduct would be no 
excuse for suffering our frontiers to lie open, or our title-deeds 
to be lost. Yet something very like such advice is sometimes 
offered to us. Our forefathers, perhaps, were too apt to include 
all strong energy of emotion and play of fancy in their general 
and unsparing censures of enthusiasm ; and some of us are dis- 
posed to redress the balance by appealing exclusively to the 
imagination and the feelings. We see that it will not do to 



44 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



address the head alone, and therefore we will not address it at 
all, but speak only to the heart. 

Now it is important to observe that this reaction was so far 
from springing from any failure of the apologists in their proper 
work, that it would hardly have been possible if that work had 
not been thoroughly done. Their proper work was to drive the 
infidel writers of their own age out of the field; and never was 
task more completely accomplished. No literature, of any 
recent date, has perished more completely than the infidel 
literature of the early and middle parts of the last century. 

Ipsa3 .periere rainse. 

It is only some curious antiquary, loving to parade forgotten 
lore, who now searches the pages of such writers as Toland 
or Tindal, and Chubb, and Morgan, and Coward, and Collins — 
though some of them were really men of parts, and all con- 
spicuous in their day. Their very names, indeed, would have 
passed wholly from remembrance, but that some of them were 
answered in works which " posterity will not easily let die ;" and 
almost all are found by the young student of theology enume- 
rated by Leland in his ' Yiew of the Deistical Writers.'* They 
survive, like the heroes of the ' Newgate Calendar,' in the 
annals of that public justice which chastised their faults. 

3. The long controversy with the infidels assumed, in the 
course of it, many forms. But these changes of position, on 
the part of the defenders of Christianity, were caused by the 
changing tactics of their assailants, who, when driven from one 
point of attack, immediately occupied a new one. 

The necessity for an English apologetic f literature began to 



* " The best book," says Burke, " that 
ever has been written against these 
people, is that in which the author Las 
collected in a body the whole of the 
infidel code, and Las brought their 
writings into one body, to cut them all 
off together." — Speech on Relief of Pro- 
testant Dissenters, 1773. 

f It has been supposed that our early 
Reformers, conscious of the weakness 
of external proofs, rested the authority 
of Scripture wholly upon its self-evi- 
dencing light. But the doctrine of the 
self-evidencing light had quite a dif- 
ferent origin. The schoolmen had 
erected theology into a science, pro- 



perly so called, which required prin- 
ciples as certain as those of natural 
science. They could not find such a 
certainty in moral evidence, and there- 
fore had recourse to supernatural light. 
The Reformers partook in their mis- 
take of requiring an assent out of pro- 
portion to the evidence ; but substi- 
tuted the infallible Scripture as its 
object for the infallible Church. The 
true distinction between assent and 
adhesion was drawn by Hooker in his 
great sermon on the 'Faith of the 
Elect,' and, after him, by Jackson, 
Works, vol. hi., Oxford, 1841. 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



45 



be felt even before the Bestoration, and is attested by such 
^works as Jeremy Taylor's ' Moral Demonstration,' and Ham- 
mond's remarkable little tract on the ' Evidences of Keligion.' 
After it, still more. The press, indeed, was not yet free to the 
infidels (though Hobbes, by masking his attack on all religion 
and morality under the form of a defence of despotism, con- 
trived to evade its restrictions) ; but it is plain, from incidental 
notices, that sceptical objections were largely circulated in MS. 
and in conversation. Men read, in secret, authors whose names 
sound strange to this generation — Averroes, Jordanes Brunus, 
Cardan, Pomponatius, Vanini ; and their doubts, denied a free 
expression, festered into grotesque and monstrous forms of 
atheism, of which Smith, and More, and Cudworth occasionally 
reveal to us portentous specimens. Learning, too, was beginning 
to suggest literary difficulties, of which we have indications in 
Isaac Yossins and Sir John Marsham. 

It was in this state of things that those two great works, Cud- 
worth's intellectual System,' and Stillingneet's 'Origines 
Sacrse,' * were published. They were certainly very far from 
being popular and easy defences of religion, but they were not 
intended as replies to popular attacks. They were the weapons 
in a war of giants. 

" JSTon jaculo, neque enim jaculo vitam ille dedisset, 
Sed magnum stridens contorta Falarica venit." 

Those who despise them have probably never read, and cer- 
tainly never understood, them. 

4. The point of attack was now gradually changed. Science 
was every day bringing fresh aids to religion. Before the 
arguments of More, and Cudworth, and Green, and Kay, and 
Boyle, and Clarke, the position of Atheism was generally 
abandoned as untenable. The divines had proved to their op- 
ponents that there was such a thing as natural religion; and 
those opponents now adopted that system of natural religion, 



* Let any competent person read the I and when his temper had been spoiled 

chapters on Ancient History in the first by flattery, and his faculties decayed 

book of the ' Origines,' and the account by years, engaged foolishly in a con- 

of the laws against the Christians in troversy with Locke, in which he did 

b. ii. c. 9, and he will see that those not appear to advantage. Yet he singled 

who sneer at that great work are them- j out most of those points which later 

selves the proper objects of pity or j metaphysicians have deemed the weak 

contempt. Stillingfleet, in his old age, ' points in Locke's harness. 



46 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



which, had been reasoned out for them, as their own ; declared 
its proofs to have been always so clear and convincing that 
nothing but the artifices of priestcraft could have obscured 
them ; and contended that revelation should at once be set aside 
as a superfluous incumbrance of its perfection.* The war-cry 
now was, " The sufficiency of natural religion !" The points in 
Christianity now selected for attack were those peculiar to it 
as distinguished from natural religion. It was contended that 
miracles were incredible, or utterly insignificant ; that God 
could not give a particular revelation ; that He could not have 
selected a chosen people ; that He could not accept a vicarious 
atonement ; that the Gospel doctrine of eternal rewards and 
punishments subverted morality by making it mercenary, &c. 
It was such objections as these that drew forth the masterpieces 
of Clarke, and Butler,! and Warburton. In then- hands the 
cause of religion was safe ; but, in its management by less 
sagacious writers, one disastrous mistake was committed, the 
influence of which was long felt to the injury of the Church. 

In the early stage of the controversy it was the infidels who 
maintained (with Hobbes and Spinoza) the selfish system of 
morals, and the defenders of religion who asserted the nobler 
doctrine that virtue was an end in itself. So much, indeed, was 
this the case that hardly anything excited more the general 
outcry against Locke's ' Essay ' than the supposition that his 
denial of innate ideas destroyed the proper foundation of ethics. 
But, in time, Locke was discovered to have been a Christian ; 
and the Platonic theory of virtue was turned by Shaftesbury 
(his somewhat ungenerous pupil) into a support of naturalism, 
and an engine for assailing Christianity. This circumstance 



* See some admirable remarks upon 
the latest form of the same prejudice 
in Dr. Salmon's ' Sermons preached in 
Trinity College, Dublin,' (Macmillan, 
1861), pp. 160-165. 

f I have seen a curious criticism upon 
Butler's style, in which his disuse of 
technical terms is accounted for by 
saying that he was essentially a Stoic, 
and may be compared with " Epictetus, 
Antoninus, and Plutarch," who moral- 
ized in the language of common life. 
The Stoics, I had always thought, were 
rather remarkable for the use of tech- 
nical terms. "Ex omnibus Pkiloso- 



phis," says Cicero, " Stoici plurima 
novaverunt. Zeno quoque, eorurn prin- 
ceps, non tarn rerum inventor fuit quarn 
novo rum verborum." — De Finibus, lib. 
iii. c. 2. And most persons who have 
looked into Antoninus will agree with 
his editor that, so far from taking his 
diction from common life, " utitur voci- 
bus plane suis, quas raro apud alios 
autores invenias." As for Plutarch, one 
is surprised to hear that he was a Stoic. 
He is commonly supposed to have writ- 
ten some rather smart treatises against 
the Stoics. 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 



47 



unhappily prejudiced some of the leading divines against even 
what was soundest in Shaftesbury's writings. They saw an acci- 
dental gain, in proving the necessity of revelation to assure man 
that the practice of virtue was, under all circumstances, his 
dearest interest, and they caught at it too eagerly. Thus 
ft Hamlet and Laertes changed rapiers," and some of the cham- 
pions of Truth disgraced themselves by using the poisoned 
weapon which they had wrested from the maintainors of error. 

But, though some oversights were committed in the conduct 
of the war, the issue of the conflict was not, on the whole, doubt- 
ful. And now again the position had to be altered to meet 
a new assault. Lord Bolingbroke gave the signal by complain- 
ing that " divines had taken much silly pains to establish mys- 
tery on metaphysics, revelation on philosophy, and matters of 
fact on abstract reasoning. Religion," he said truly — " such as 
the Christian, which appeals to facts — must be proved as all 
other facts that pass for authentic are proved. If they are thus 
proved, the religion will prevail without the assistance of so much 
profound reasoning." * 

To the proof of religion, then, as a matter of fact, the Chris- 
tian divines addressed themselves : and as the points to be con- 
sidered in this view were the credibility of the prime witnesses 
to the miraculous facts of Christianity, and the trustworthiness of 
the tradition by which their testimony has been delivered down 
to us, it was these which were the chief subjects of the apologetic 
literature which may be said to terminate in the works of 
Lardner j and Paley. 

But though the defenders of Christianity had been expressly 
challenged to this field of argument, it was one into which their 
antagonists showed little serious disposition to follow them. Cer- 
tainly Lord Bolingbroke's own performances, in his 4 Remarks 
on the Canon of Scripture,' and the historical speculations which 
are scattered in his ' Fragments,' were not very formidable to 
the faith. Gradually the attack upon revealed religion fell into 



* See Warburton's ' Doctrine of 
Grace.' 

t " I should be ungrateful," says Mr. 
"Westcott, "not to bear witness to the 
accuracy and fulness of Lardner's ' Cre- 
dibility ;' for, however imperfect it may 
be in the view which it gives of the 



earliest period of Christian literature, 
it is, unless I am mistaken, more com- 
plete and trustworthy than any work 
which has been written since on the 
same subject." — History of the Canon, 
p. 9. 



48 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



the hands of persons too ignorant and too manifestly unscru- 
pulous to produce much effect upon the educated part of the 
public. Such writers as Burgh and Paine might do mischief 
among the lower classes ; but they can hardly fill a place in any 
literary history. 

Two really illustrious names do indeed close the catalogue of 
the infidels of the last century — Hume and Gibbon.* But neither 
appeared as an open assailant of Christianity, and neither owes 
his chief fame to those parts of his writings in which Christianity 
was assailed. After them infidelity in England appeared to 
have sheathed its sword, furled its banner, and retired from the 
field. 

5. But what meanwhile was the internal condition of the 
Church ? It was (to recur to a former comparison) too much 
like an estate after the decision of a long suit in Chancery 
to settle a litigated title. The controversy with the infidels had 
not been the only one of that busy century. It was an age 
of a thousand controversies. There was the great Nonjuring 
Controversy, in which political rancour was still more embittered 
by the gall of the odium theologicum. There was the great 
Bangorian Controversy, growing out of the former, and draining 
into it all the poisonous dregs of its predecessor. There was 
the great Convocation Controversy, which changed country 
parsons into clerical Hampdens, and ranged High Church 
divines in strange antagonism against the royal supremacy. 
There was the great Trinitarian Controversy, begun by Clarke 
and Waterland, and continued by a host of inferior writers, till 
the public grew weary of the very thought of Patristic litera- 
ture.! These and countless minor ones distracted the attention 
of churchmen from observing the spiritual destitution that was 
spreading widely around them amidst all this polemical activity. 



* In reference to the supposed diffi- 
culties and discouragements under 
which infidels labour, it is worth ob- 
serving that both Hume and Gibbon 
held lucrative situations under Govern- 
ment. At an earlier period it was 
Walpole's policy to patronize some of 
the most rabid and indecent assailants 
of religion ; and, until the infidels had 
been thoroughly refuted by the wea- 
pons both of wit and argument, the 
most open avowal of their opinions was 



rather a recommendation to what was 
called " polite society." A strong re- 
action in the tone of popular literature 
began with Steele and Addison. 

t Warburton made an effort, in the 
preface to his 'Julian,' to restore the 
Fathers to some credit, and to put their 
character in a favourable light : and, 
in return, he has been charged with 
" disdain, and ignorance of Catholic 
theology." 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



49 



The brilliant services of the tongue and pen in defending 
Christianity, or orthodoxy, or even faction, eclipsed the less 
showy, but not less real, and far more generally requisite, 
usefulness of the pastoral care, in its ordinary forms of teach- 
ing and admonition. Prelates forsook their dioceses for the 
nobler work of writing controversy, or asserting the political 
interests of their order. Discipline became relaxed ; parishes 
were neglected ; and at the end of the century the Church found 
itself surrounded with a swarming population, and no adequate 
machinery provided for dealing with this mass of ignorance. 

It is not true, I think, that the bulk of the lower orders had 
been leavened with infidelity.* Their heathenism was negative, 
not positive ; they had been suffered to grow up in gross igno- 
rance of religion : and it was during the prevalence of such evils 
that the evangelical reaction — commencing with the Methodist 
movement — began. 

6. But it would be an error, I apprehend, to suppose that it was 
Whitfield and the Wesleys who originated a Eeformation. Long- 
before them it appears manifest that a healthy reaction had set 
in. As the old panic dread of fanaticism abated on the one 
hand, and the necessities of continual controversy became less on 
the other, preachers insisted more and more on the peculiarities 
of the Christian faith as the springs and motives of Gospel obe- 
dience. Energetic efforts were made to build new churches and 
establish schools throughout the country : and (what is always a 
hopeful sign) some zeal began to be felt for foreign missions, 
and some sense of responsibility for the religious state of our 
colonies. A change for the better was going on. The case of 
Whitfield and the Wesleys was that of other energetic men 
whose names figure in history as the originators of mighty 
changes. They fling themselves into a great movement before 
it has become conspicuous to the vulgar eye: they put them- 
selves at its head ; they carry it on to extravagance, and thus 
accelerate and extend an impulse which they partially misdirect, 
and may ultimately spoil for ever. 



* Even that of the upper was greatly 
overrated: "The truth of the 'case," 
says Hurd, a cool observer, "is no more 
than this. A few fashionable men make 
a noise in the world ; and this clamour 
being echoed on all sides from the shal- 



low circles of their admirers, misleads 
the unwary into an opinion that the 
irreligious spirit is universal and un- 
controllable." — See the whole passage, 
'Sermons on Prophecy,' sermon xii., con- 
clusion. 



E 



50 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IT. 



Tlie Methodists, then, had not to convert the English popula- 
tion to a belief in Christianity ; but they had to awaken a sense of 
the Christian religion in men who had been so long thinking of 
it as a thing to be proved that they had forgotten that it was alsa 
a thing to be felt and acted on ; and they had to teach even the 
elements of that religion to vast numbers of an outlying mass 
beyond the range of ordinary instruction. This was the appro- 
priate work to which the circumstances of the times really called 
them. But, besides the pressure of these real wants, there were 
other cravings of the popular mind demanding satisfaction. 
There was (what is to be found in every generation) the great 
herd of superficial minds who always require the stimulus of 
something new ; who throw the blame of theh' own shallowness 
upon their teachers, and are always asking for something more 
" deep and earnest and thoroughgoing," or " more rational and 
suited to the age," than the current theology, whatever it may 
be. This is the common sequacious mob of " novarum rerum 
avidi," who are drawn, like insects, by the loudest noise and 
the greatest glare. This moveable, and indeed restless multi- 
tude, swells the decuman wave of every great movement, and 
retires with its ebb, only to return again on the crest of its suc- 
cessor. Nor can it be reasonably doubted that many of those 
amiable but weak persons who have latterly been roving over 
England in the garb of Passionists and Oratorians would have 
been, in the days of Whitfield's popularity, preaching rank Me- 
thodism on Kennington Common, amidst a shower of mud and 
turnip-tops. 

There was, then, in the first place, the call for something new. 
But there was also the call for something fanatical. The 
terrible experience of the seventeenth century had left a deep 
impression on the beginning of the eighteenth, of dread and 
bitter scorn of fanaticism. In the wild tumult of the Common- 
wealth the nation had been, as it were, drunk with religious en- 
thusiasm ; and, in shame and grief at the remembrance of that 
horrible debauch and all its crimes, they had hastily vowed a total 
abstinence from those feelings which Hartley describes under 
the odd but convenient term Theopathy. But a wild career of 
another kind of drunkenness had done much to efface that im- 
pression before the close of that century ; and the hypocrisy of 
the Puritans had been thrown into the shade by the brazen 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



51 



profligacy of the race who succeeded them. Enthusiasm was 
again eagerly demanding its turn for gratification. 

7. Furthermore, there was a want that has been less often 
remarked as one of the causes of Methodism — the want of what 
may be called a freer Church-activity. The busy, bustling demo- 
cratic spirit of ultra-Protestantism had made itself so hateful in 
the previous generation, that, within the Church, laymen shrank 
from meddling. The synodical assemblies of the clergy had only 
spasmodic fits of action, in which they either tore themselves, or 
made violent assaults on others. Their time and energies were 
wasted in disputes between the two Houses, disputes with the 
Crown, disputes with obnoxious brethren; — till, at last, their 
action became so manifestly scandalous that the Minister was 
able to silence them entirely, to the general satisfaction of a 
public who had ceased to be entertained by their quarrels.* 
Thus they no longer broke the dull monotony of quiet which 
it was the policy of Walpole to maintain per fas aut nefas. 
" The Convocation gaped, but could not speak." 
Outside the Church, dissent had been crushed by the rigorous 
laws of Charles II., and the general disgust and contempt of the 
nation, so effectually, that it could not recover when the Tolera- 
tion came. The Dissenting teachers were generally either hard, 
dry, and narrow Calvinistical divines ; or men of enlarged and 
liberal sentiments, disgusted with their own communion, and no 
longer retaining the old prejudices against surplices and 
rochettes, but kept from conformity, partly by hereditary pride, 
and partly by dislike to the doctrinal fetters of subscription to 
the Articles and Liturgy .f How far an ultra-liberalism had 
leavened the Dissenting teachers became manifest when the 
Arian movement carried, at one sweep, the whole body of the 
English Presbyterians, and a great part of the Irish, into a 
heresy most remote from the traditions of their forefathers. 

Thus, within the Church and without, there was a demand 
beginning to be felt for some free and stirring ecclesiastical 



* Like tlie old comedy — ■ 

" Turpiter obticuit, sublato jure nocendi." 

t See the notices of negotiations for 
a comprehension in Doddridge's Cor- 
respondence, and compare the language 
of Harewood : " Our separation is not 



founded in vestments and surplices, in 
liturgies, crosses, and genuflexions, in 
godfathers, godmothers, and rotatory 
motions, — it is Athanasius who drives 
us from your altars." — Five Disserta- 
tions (1772), p. 63. 

E 2 



52 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



activity ; the thought of which men had ceased to associate with 
any of the old organisations. 

8. In such a state of predisposition, Whitfield and the 
Wesleys began their work by preaching the New Birth. The 
term had doubtless a sound and valuable meaning. But, in that 
sense it meant, not the production of a new belief, but of a new 
sense of the reality and importance of momentous truths involved 
in what had been already assented to. 

These two things are frequently confounded by careless 
thinkers ; but, in reality, they are quite different : and the dif- 
ference is observable, not only in religious, but in ethical 
matters, and in the affairs of common life. In all practica] 
matters, mere belief, or acquiescence, is one thing; and that 
belief, quickened into a sense of reality, and touching all the 
springs of action, is another : and, in all practical matters, the 
most mischievous consequences may result from confounding 
together such different things. It would be a great mistake to 
fancy that Faith had been produced as soon as ever the mind 
had been brought to recognise the connection of a conclusion 
with unimpeachable premisses : and it would be a great mistake, 
on the other hand, to suppose that all processes of reasoning 
might be discarded, and nothing consulted or addressed but the 
fancy and the emotions. " Going over the theory of virtue " 
may indeed, as Butler has pointed out, not only fail to make a 
man practically moral, but tend to deaden the sense of moral 
truths, by weakening then practical, as it shows their rational, 
associations. But we should not, therefore, listen to a hotheaded 
reformer like Kousseau, who would urge us to cast aside all 
theory and reasoning in morals, and attend to nothing but the 
immediate dictates of the heart. 

Into such confusions and mistakes, however, the leaders of the 
Evangelical movement were rapidly beguiled by their own 
sudden and widely-spread success. They taught (and taught 
rightly) that we must not only believe, but feel, before we can 
act, as Christians. In recalling attention to the truth that the 
Gospel is a revelation of God's love to sinners, designed to pro- 
duce corresponding affections in our hearts — that the faith of 
Christ is a faith that works through love, they did valuable 
service, which should never be dissembled or forgotten. But 
unhappily they went on to teach that the belief and the action 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



53 



were to be grounded upon the feelings, considered as the imme- 
diate and sensible operation of the Holy Spirit upon the human 
mind. 

Now such a preposterous mistake as this could hardly have 
been possible but for the general acquiescence of the national 
mind in the truth of the Christian religion. For I am per- 
suaded that none except the very wildest fanatics (and the leaders 
of whom I speak were certainly not mere wild fanatics) do really 
thus wholly ground their faith upon an imaginary inspiration. 
There is, in almost all cases, a secret tacit reference in the 
bottom of the heart to some fixed external standard by which 
the extravagances of fancy and feeling are moderated and kept 
in check. The Methodists could assume the general truth of 
Christianity as a postulatum. They could assume that there was 
a Holy Spirit ; they could assume the necessary coincidence of 
His teaching in the heart with His teaching in the Holy Scrip- 
tures ; and they could try the former by the latter. In the first 
fervours of their preaching they plainly were tempted to appeal 
to the agitations which it produced in the minds and bodies of 
their converts as a sort of miraculous attestation of its truth ; 
but experience soon convinced the shrewder of them that such 
evidence could not be relied upon, and that the true appeal must 
be made elsewhere. But the logical viciousness of the circle in 
which the mind moves in such cases can only be hidden from it 
when the external authority on which it falls back is thought of 
as something unquestioned and unquestionable. It is only in 
reference to heretics, who hold in common with himself the 
inspiration of Scripture, that the Eomanist can be guilty of the 
absurdity of proving his Church by the Scriptures, and the 
Scriptures by his Church. When dealing with the infidel, he 
must proceed, just as other Christians proceed, by the way of 
moral evidence; and from the ' Summa contra Gentiles' of 
Aquinas down to the ' Principia ' of Abbe Hooke, this is the way 
in which Koman Catholic as well as Protestant apologists have 
proceeded in the argument against infidelity. So, also, when 
one enthusiast meets another of opposite sentiments, but with 
persuasions as strong, feelings as lively, satisfaction as complete, 
and inward peace as perfect as his own, each is driven to " try 
- t]ie spirit " of his antagonist by some external test, forgetting 
that, upon his own principles, that standard itself was only 



54 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



known by the inward discernment which it is now employed to 
control. Where such a standard is unhesitatingly admitted by 
both, the fallacy may be long concealed ; but as soon as its 
authority comes to be generally and openly questioned, the mis- 
take becomes patent, and can only be corrected by abandoning 
the false principle which has produced the mischief. 

One circumstance which contributed to favour the Metho- 
distic exaggerations upon this subject was, that the doctrine of 
the influence of the Holy Spirit had been one comparatively 
reserved in the preaching of the preceding half-century. I do 
not mean that it was denied, or even wholly omitted. Such 
strong and wholesale charges against the teaching of the Church 
at that period are often made; but they are wholly without 
foundation. But when referred to in more than a general way, 
the reference was usually for the purpose' of guarding against 
fanatical extravagance — for correcting the abuse rather than 
illustrating the use of that doctrine ; for showing rather what 
was not, than what was implied in it. 

It was not strange, therefore, if, in their ardour to develop 
fully, on its positive side, this cardinal Christian doctrine of a free 
and intimate communion between God in Christ and the human 
soul, the Evangelical leaders were tempted to overstep the 
bounds of sobriety ; and to forget that the Holy Spirit is given 
not to supersede, or supply the place of, any of our natural 
faculties, but to help their infirmity, and restore them to that 
just balance and due subordination — that proper and healthful 
exercise — which have been disturbed by sin. From Him, in- 
deed, " all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do 
proceed f but we must first determine that our desires are holy, 
our counsels good, and our works just, before we can, without 
intolerable rashness, attribute them to that sacred influence ; 
and we cannot determine that by the mere strength of our per- 
suasions, or the vividness of our fancies, or the depth and 
earnestness of our feelings, without opening a way for every 
wild extravagance that can support itself on strong persuasion, 
vivid fancy, and deep and earnest feeling. 

But, in the flush and fervour of their triumph, and the general 
silence of the advocates of infidelity, the evangelical leaders 
went on securely — comparing proudly their own achievements 
with the performances of their predecessors — and declaring that 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



55 



they needed no other evidences than the manifest adaptation of 
their doctrine to the wants of mankind, and its living power, 
when received, to regenerate a sinful race. 

9. The natural consequence of all this was an extensive decay 
among them of theological learning. A few leading doctrines 
were, for them, the essence of the Gospel, and their preaching, 
in too many cases, became little more than a monotonous repe- 
tition of those doctrines. For such a ministry neither deep 
research nor accurate thinking was at all necessary. On the 
contrary, it was manifest that, in order to make a great part of 
the Bible available for the direct teaching of the few subjects to 
which they confined themselves, it was needful to violate all 
rules of sober criticism, and confound the Old Testament with 
the New by an arbitrary spiritualising interpretation to which 
reason could set no limits. The practical result of such a course 
was an extensive, though vague, popular impression that the 
test of a correct exposition of Scripture was the amount of com- 
fort or edification that the hearer or reader sensibly derived 
from it. The pious feelings which a text, as he understood it, 
produced in his mind were unhesitatingly regarded as the con- 
sequence of the Spirit's teaching through the Word. Human 
agency, it was indeed acknowledged, was necessary to teach a 
man to read ; and human agency was needful to supply the 
unlearned with translations of the Bible ; but, beyond this, very 
little was allowed to any other help than prayer, for the profit- 
able study of the Scripture. 

The real tendency, it is evident, of such opinions is not to 
exalt the authority of the Word of God, but to destroy it. The 
mind of the reader in such a process of study, instead of re- 
ceiving instruction from the Scripture, imports a meaning into 
it. We have, not an Exegesis, but an Isegesis. A certain 
system of doctrine is first accepted, not upon the authority 
of propounders accredited by external evidence, but for the 
sake of the doctrine itself: the Scripture becomes valuable 
only as the vehicle of this doctrine, and valuable in propor- 
tion as it can be made the vehicle of this doctrine, and the 
means of exciting a certain class of pious sentiments : and, as 
it is soon discovered that what the very 'elements of criticism 
would detect as palpable misinterpretations or mistranslations of 
the sacred text may be the most cherished vehicles of such doc- 



58 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



trine, and powerful exciters of such feelings, criticism is laid 
aside, and the Bible becomes a kind of cipher, to be read not by 
reason but by fancy. 

10. I am tracing here the ultimate* development of false prin- 
ciples when left unchecked to their full operation. But, even in 
cases where no such extravagance was possible, we can perceive 
through a great part of the religious writings of the last genera- 
tion a prevailing tendency to forget the aspect of Fact, and 
view only the aspect of Doctrine in contemplating the truths of 
Christianity. Indeed, if we steadily retain in our minds the 
historical view of Christianity which [is presented in the New 
Testament, and the primitive creeds, as a religion of Facts, it 
will be hard to grasp Mr. Coleridge's dictum as even a compre- 
hensible utterance. It will immediately strike us as hardly 
intelligible to say, that the best way to convince a man that 
Jesus Christ was " conceived by the Holy Ghost ; born of the 
Virgin Mary ; suffered under Pontius Pilate ; was crucified, 
dead, and buried ; and the third day^rose again from the dead ;" 
is to make him sensible of a strong wish that these facts should 
have taken place. . It would at once become plain that the 
religion which was to be proved by such a process must be 
something widely different from an historical religion. 

11. While such causes as I have endeavoured to indicate were 
in England loosing men's hold upon the historical element 
in Christianity, other influences were operating at a greater 
distance towards the same result. The literature of Ger- 
many is eminently speculative and metaphysical. There the 
Governments have been accustomed to forbid, as dangerous to 
the public peace, the free discussion of those concrete matters 
relating to Church and State on which the popular mind with 
us is kept continually interested, and often agitated. The only 
scope for the activity of the human intellect in dealing with 
morals, religion, and politics, is in those high generalities where 
vulgar minds are unable to follow it. Literary men converse 
with, and write for, literary men, and feel no necessity to trans- 
late their thoughts into the common working-day language of 
ordinary life. Within the esoteric circle, one dialect is spoken ; 
without it, another :* and thus speculation is unchecked by that 
constant reference to the common sense of mankind which in 
freer countries curbs its extravagance. 



Essay iH] 



EVIDENCES OF CHEISTIANITY. 



57 



These two circumstances — the encouragement of unlimited 
speculation within bounds remote from vulgar apprehension, and 
the repression of everything directly tending to agitate the mass 
of the people, or shake the institutions of the country — gave its 
peculiar character to German infidelity. The problem to be 
solved was, the substitution of metaphysical Pantheism for 
revealed religion, combined with a retaining of the structure 
and ordinances of the Church, together with the language of the 
Scripture and the Creeds, accommodated to the requirements 
of such metaphysics. The result has been truly described as a 
system which, " concealing scepticism under faith, using much 
circumlocution to reach its object, dwelling on the imagination, 
on poetry, on spirituality, transfigured what it threw into the 
shade, built up what it destroyed, and affirmed in words what in 
effect it denied." It was intended for a kind of Euthanasia of 
Christianity. Revelation was to die out, not amidst the insults 
of coarse assailants, but the compliments and tender regret of 
friends, and to leave behind it an honoured name and a con- 
spicuous monument. God was to be merged in the Soul of the 
Universe : Chkist in the Ideal of Humanity : the Incaknation 
in the union of the higher and lower principles of human 
nature; and the Atonement in the reconciliation of those 
principles through struggle and suffering. For the successful 
carrying out of such an enterprise, it was necessary to expel the 
miraculous from the documents of Christianity, without charging 
the authors of them with fraud or deliberate imposture : and 
this was attempted in two ways. The earlier project was to 
resolve the supposed miracles into a series of odd natural events, 
sometimes mistaken for supernatural by the excited fancies of 
the spectators. The later method proposed to turn almost the 
whole narrative, natural and supernatural, into a set of sym- 
* bolical legends embodying the idea of the Jewish Messiah as 
modified by the necessity of adapting it to J esus of Nazareth. 
Each of these — the naturalistic and the mythical theory — 
promised well at first ; but each was soon found to labour under 
insuperable difficulties. Common sense revolted at last, even in 
the studies of German professors, against the clumsily elaborate 
explanations by which miracles were converted into natural 
- events. A fresh hypothesis had to be made for each occurrence, 
and it was at last perceived that such a multitude of strange 



58 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



natural phenomena, crowded into the narrative of a few years, 
and gratuitously assumed for the mere purpose of evading the 
obvious meaning of the story, were really far more improbable 
than miracles themselves. On the other hand, the external 
evidence carried back the date of the sacred writings to ah age 
when the true history of Jesus was so recent as to make it 
incredible that it should have been wholly smothered then by 
legends of a mere romantic character ;* while the gravity, con- 
sistency, and perfect quietness of the style of those writings 
themselves made the attempt to turn them into mythical 
legends a task everywhere difficult in detail, and, in some cases, 
even ludicrously hopeless. Hence, to account for the historical 
phenomena of Christianity is still really an unsolved problem 
among German unbelievers. The plain direct account — that 
Jesus was the Son of God ; that He died, and rose again ; and 
sent His Holy Spirit to plant His Church in the world — is set 
aside by an a priori presumption against all miracles. But the 
historical evidence, the Books themselves, still remains a " stone 
of stumbling, and rock of offence," against which hypothesis 
after hypothesis is dashed to pieces. 

The irreligious principles which thus, for a long time, infected 
the critical and philosophic and theological literature of the 
Continent, made it odious in England ; and the policy at first 
acted on was to endeavour to exclude it altogether from the 
notice of the British public, f But such a policy was attended 
with greater evils than were likely to have ensued if things had 
been suffered to take their natural course. A great part, indeed, 
of the critical literature of Germany w r as valuable in no sense 
whatever. Much of it was a mere succession of wild hypotheses, { 
springing up, like mushrooms, in the morning, and perishing at 
night, without leaving even a relic of their decay to manure the 



* Strauss, for example, is compelled 
to acknowledge that Luke, the author 
of the third Gospel and the Acts, was 
the companion, and most probably the 
disciple, of St. Paul. 

t See some curious details in the Ap- 
pendix to Goode's 'Life of Geddes.' 
The scandal occasioned by the transla- 
tions of Schleiermacher, and even of 
Neibuhr, are matters of recent memory. 

| " It is well known," says De Wette 
in the Preface to his ' Lehrbuch der 



historisch-kritischen Einleitung,' " that 
from the beginning .... the pernicious 
fondness for vain and arbitrary combina- 
tions and hypotheses has been brought 

into this department The 

burden of hypotheses under which Bib- 
lical introduction labours has been 
much increased in recent times." He 
takes credit for bringing back the his- 
tory of the Septuagint version to the 
place in which Hody left it in 1704 ! 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



59 



soil on which they had flourished. Much of it was the mere 
lost labour of a perverse diligence, and sinister ingenuity, like 
the fairy toil of the Gnomes and Kobolcls in the fables of its own 
mines and forests. But so vast an amount of intense mental 
activity and unlimited research into all the recesses of learning, 
sacred and profane, — so free a questioning of everything; so 
various a combination of new ideas upon such a multitude of 
subjects, — could not but contain in it seeds of thought that might 
have usefully stimulated the natural indolence of our intellect 
at home. The mere love of Truth for its own sake is, in general, 
not sufficient to set men on work, and keep them at work. It 
is, to a great extent, the collision of thought, the pressure of 
difficulties, the agitation of doubts, that, by "troubling the 
waters," makes them yield their virtue. The culture of the 
mind is like the tillage of the soil — 

" Pater ipse colendi 
Hand facilem esse viam voluit, primusque per arles 
Movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda, 
Nec torpere gravi passus sua regna veterno." 

As it was, English scholarship seemed to have settled upon its 
lees ; and we have scarcely ever had an age so barren of any 
great efforts as that of winch we are now speaking. * 

12. But meanwhile men of leisure and curiosity, in the uni- 
versities and elsewhere, disgusted with the tame and superficial 
monotony that prevailed around them, were repairing, as it were 
in secret, to the fresh stores that had been opened on the conti- 
nent of Europe. The very circumstance that this foreign litera- 
ture was secluded from the vulgar gaze, and even a kind of 
contraband learning, gave it an additional charm. The adepts felt 
as if they had been initiated in some higher mysteries, and were 
disposed hugely to over-estimate the value of their attainments. 
Doubts and strange opinions which, if they had been freely 



* I Lave purposely avoided any de- 
tails of the reaction towards Church 
authority called the Tract Movement. 
It is certain that, so far from doing any- 
thing to revive the study of Christian 
evidences, some of the foremost leaders 
of that movement went even beyond 
the most violent ultra-Protestants in de- 
nouncing that study as dangerous ; and 



ultimately encouraged men to " throw 
themselves" into a particular system, 
on the ground mainly of its affording 
scope to certain religious feelings, and 
gratifying certain religious tastes. This 
branch of the subject has been con- 
sidered in the ' Cautions for the Times.' 
(Parker and Son, London.) 



IB * .YTIZAIT2ISH0 10 B&OftSGITS [.II YAae3 

60 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II. 

^ prrnfynrr iwtq °rr\ +rf teofcaFTrrrr ?a prrnrrfl'TArrrrP srr rt ittaas ~ rfnrrlV/ 

expressed and ventilated in the fresh air and broad sunshine of 
public discussion, would have soon shrunk to their proper small 
dimensions, grew into giants in the shade, and over-mastered the 
minds that had been nursing them in secret. Then, gradually, 
the influence of the new opinions began to pervade the current 
literature of the country — not in plain and definite statements 
— that would have too rudely shocked the multitude ; but some- 
times in hints " vocal to the intelligent," sometimes in ambiguous 
language adapting to other purposes the religious phrases of the 
day, sometimes under a cloud of metaphysical jargon that 
bewildered the admiring reader. Thus it has come to pass that, 
without any open controversy, but silently, as it were, and 
" while men slept," the old matter-of-fact faith has died out in 
many minds, and religion has come to be regarded as an affair 
of sentiment, that should be disentangled, as soon as possible, 
from its historical elements. 

13. It would not, I think, be very difficult to meet the patrons 
of such views, even on their own high philosophical ground. I 
think it would not be hard to prove that, even if we took the 
moral wants of man as the sole measure of religious truth, the 
Gospel which these persons preach is inadequate to meet the 
moral wants of man. We require not merely an ideal of human 
excellence, but to see that ideal realized ; and to see further that 
the issue of that realization has been a triumph over all the ills 
of life, and over all the menaces of death. We require to be 
shown in fact that man can truly serve God, and that the end of 
that service is everlasting life. We need a basis of fact, an his- 
torical basis, for our religious faith ; and without such a basis 
that faith is a mere castle in the air — a splendid vision, as prac- 
tically inoperative to resist real temptation as every other ideal 
picture has ever proved. 

But, after all, this would be only " answering a fool according 
to his folly;" and it is better to begin by protesting at once 
against the foundation of the whole theory. It is a mere delusion 
to fancy that man's supposed wants or his wishes are to be taken 
as either the major or the minor limits, or indeed as any measure 
at all, of religious truth. We cannot be justified in assuming 
that tlrings exist because we seem to ourselves to want, or because 
we feel that we earnestly desire their existence : nor can we even 
be justified in disbelieving or disregarding the existence of things 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



61 



which seem to us superfluous, or unpleasant, or even noxious, if 
assured on good authority that they exist, and that it is important 
for us to take notice of their existence. 

That man must, indeed, be a backward scholar in the school of 
nature who has not learned, even from his own experience, how 
little human wants and wishes are an evidence that the things 
wanted and wished for really exist. It is the common delusion of 
over-sanguine youth to fancy that we shall find in life exactly what 
we seem to require, and that circumstances will infallibly open for 
us those opportunities which are most suitable for the display of 
our talents, and the advancement of our fortunes. But how little 
does stern reality tally with these golden dreams of the inexpe- 
rienced imagination ! And shall we go on to the grave, trusting 
these promises of our own fancy, which every day is, with con- 
tinually accumulated evidence, proving to be false ? 

It is not, if we are wise, to our wants and wishes that we trust, 
in the^ affairs of this world, as evidence that the means of remedy- 
ing those wants, or gratifying those wishes, are in store for us ; 
but to the proper evidence of matters of fact. And if we would 
find a solid basis for our religious faith, we must obtain for it also 
a similar foundation. 

The truth is that we may see beforehand that the Avants and 
wishes of a creature like man are boundless, and, in their very 
nature, incapable of being all gratified. All creatures are necessa- 
rily imperfect ; and every imperfection is the want of some con- 
ceivable good ; and every conceivable good is in itself desirable ; 
and may, if we give the reins to our desire, become an object of 
our wishes. 

" Men would be angels, angels would be gods." 

Nothing short of absolute, of infinite perfection can possibly 
supply all wants, and gratify all the wishes of an imperfect 
being, who fancies that he has only to wish strongly in order to 
obtain his object. 

And equally vain is the notion that we may safely disregard 
everything that seems not suitable to our moral nature. Here, 
again, let us have recourse to that analogy which the great 
master of that argument has justly described as % the very guide 
of life." How ill would a child reason who should obstinately 
i neglect every study, the use of which he could not himself 



62 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



discern ! And, as to the tilings of another life, are we not all 
children? Shall we, who know not what an hour may bring- 
forth — we, whose wisest calculations and most sagacious foresight 
are perpetually baffled and brought to nothing in a moment by 
the changes and chances of even this short mortal life — shall we 
presume to take our own case for eternity into our own hands, 
and determine for ourselves what is sufficient for us to believe ? 
The Almighty has taken us under His own care. He has 
promised us an inheritance of which we know little more than 
that it is a state of eternal holiness and happiness. He has 
engaged to prepare us for it here ; and, for that purpose, has re- 
vealed to us those truths which He saw fitting for our discipline. 
Can we know so certainly how the character which He requires 
is to be formed, as to be able to correct the method which He 
has been pleased to employ ? Do we know our spiritual diseases 
so well that we can safely reject the remedies which the Great 
Physician has prescribed for them ? Are we, in this our state 
of infancy, so perfectly acquainted with all that is needful for 
our manhood that we can manage our own education, and deter- 
mine the training by which we are to be reared for Heaven ? — 
If, indeed, the present life were the whole of each man's exist- 
ence, if our only immortality were the immortality of the human 
race, there might be some specious ground for saying that we 
had now made such a survey of all our narrow domain, and 
gained such a knowledge of our capacities and implements, that 
we were at last entitled to be our own masters, and might trust 
to our own little skill and prudence in the management of our 
own little territory. But if a boundless and untried existence, 
beyond the limits of all our experience, really does lie before each 
individual hereafter, it is surely mere madness to neglect, in 
matters which concern that existence, the teachings of Him who 
alone knows the nature of that hidden world into which we are 
so blindly passing. 

A prudent man, then, will not only inquire what it is that 
Ins heart seems to want, but also how far those wants are in 
point of fact supplied. He will not only consider what he 
wishes to be true, but what he has reasonable evidence for 
believing to be true. He will treat the truths of Beligion as 
matters of fact, and seek for the appropriate evidence of mat- 
ters of fact — that is, in other words, for historical evidence. 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



14. A religion disentangled entirely from all historical in- 
quiries, and commending itself immediately to the mind by its 
mere intrinsic beauty and suitability to man's wants and wishes, 
may be a very captivating vision, and seems highly desirable on 
many accounts ; but it is a gross abuse of words to call such a 
religion Christianity. Christianity is the religion which was 
taught by Christ and his Apostles; and it was certainly an 
historical religion — a religion made up of matters of fact,, 
and propounded on the evidence of matters of fact — which they 
promulgated. "That which we have heard and seen with our 
eyes, and our hands have handled of the Word of Life, declare 
we unto you," is the language of the first preachers of the 
Gospel ; and the modern attempt to separate the ideal Christ, 
the type of the godlike in man, from the historical person, is 
not a whit less opposed to the genius of the Apostolic religion 
than was that teaching of the Gnostics against which the last of 
the Apostles raised his warning voice as the very spirit of 
Antichrist. The Christ of the Gnostics was an impalpable 
iEon ; the Christ of their successors is something less substan- 
tial — an abstract idea. 

Indeed, whatever may be the case with other religions, the 
Gospel certainly never made its way by first recommending* 
itself to the conscious wants and wishes of mankind. It seemed, 
on the contrary, to contradict all man's expectations, and to 
outrage all their cherished feelings, and to cross all their 
desires. It was "to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the 
Greeks foolishness." It is not until believed and acted upon 
that it gradually changes the temper and frame of mind into 
accordance with itself ; it is like some of those tonic medicines 
which, at first, seem bitter and disagreeable, until the palate is 
accustomed to their taste, and the stomach braced and strength- 
ened by their wholesome harshness. 

It may indeed, on the surface, seem strange that the Chris- 
tian religion should be thus encumbered, as it were, by an 
apparatus of history; and that men should be required to 
investigate the evidence of past transactions in order to find a 
basis for their Faith, instead of merely consulting their hearts, 
and finding an echo there, to attest the divinity of its voice. 
But in this, as in other cases, we shall find, upon reflection, that 
what seems the foolishness of God, is wiser than men. The 



64 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



careful and candid investigation of the evidences on which 
Christianity rests — not for the satisfying a mere inquisitive 
curiosity, but to find truth for the regulation of our lives — is an 
eminently practical exercise of the understanding, and brings 
home the great facts of our religion as facts to the mind, with a 
feeling of their reality which the most highly raised efforts of 
the imagination cannot give them ; and thus makes rational 
deliberate faith a counterpoise to the engrossing influence of 
sense. In the affairs of the world, we know that realities 
address themselves, in some shape or other, to the judgment ; 
and that those that exclusively and immediately address the 
feelings and the imagination are unreal. If then the objects of 
religion entered only through this ivory gate of fancy into the 
mind, a steady practical faith in their reality could be hardly 
maintained. I say a steady practical faith ; for, undoubtedly, if 
religion were a mere affair of feeling divorced from practice, or 
of practice divorced from motive and reduced to the mere 
mechanism of custom, there might be something intelligible hi 
discarding all investigation of evidence. Every one, even super- 
ficially acquainted with the structure of the human mind, is 
aware that the feelings may, as in the case of a novel or a play, 
be deeply interested and strongly excited, without anything but, 
at best, a sort of dim and transient belief in the reality of the 
objects which thus interest and excite them ; and that, for such 
a purpose, scarcely anything more is necessary than that the 
mind should not, for the time, attend to their unreality. This 
suffices for mere feeling : but for action, a perfectly sane man 
requires more. He requires evidence as a ground of belief: 
and, even in an insane man, — where the fancy has become 
paramount, and established its throne upon the ruins of the 
understanding, close observers can generally detect a lurking 
suspicion of the deceitfulness of the mind's own visions, — an 
unsteady wavering flicker in the predominating persuasion, 
which betrays a difference of no small importance between 
rational and irrational belief ; a secret sense of insecurity and 
weakness, which makes the mind of the madman, except 
in some high paroxysm of frenzy, succumb and quail before 
the calmer presence of a well-regulated intellect. 

15. There is another use also served by this complication of 
religion with historical inquiry, which it is not unsuitable to 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHBISTIAXITY. 



65 



notice. The essential connection of Christianity with the history 
of past ages makes a provision for the maintenance and advance- 
ment of civilization in every country in which Christianity 
prevails. It was this which made the preservation of learning- 
possible when the great flood of barbarism swept over Europe, 
and the Church alone contained the sacred deposit of an earlier 
civilization — the memory of the past, and the hopes of the 
future. And it is this which is still a bulwark against bar- 
barism. Barbarism is essentially that state of mind which is 
produced by placing it exclusively under the influences of a 
contracted present sphere of circumstances. It is, as Dr. 
Johnson justly said, " by making the past, the distant, and the 
future predominate over the present," that we are " advanced 
in the dignity of thinking beings." All history, more or less, 
renders this valuable service to the human mind ; but it cannot 
be reasonably doubted that the history of the Church, in that 
view of it which the Bible presents, as one continuous body 
from the beginning of the world, is, of all others, the best fitted 
to render such a service. The idea of history, it has been truly 
said,* is that of the biography of a society. There must be, to 
constitute the narrative properly historical, an unity of action, 
interest, and purpose among the persons who are the subjects 
of it. Now, whether we consider the length of its duration, or 
the breadth of its extent, — the variety of its fortunes, or the 
unity of its purpose, — the diversity of its members in age, and 
character, and language, and manners, and habits of thought, 
and stages of cultivation, .or the closeness of mutual relation 
into which all these seemingly scattered persons have been 
brought, — what other society can anywhere be pointed out 
which can form so noble and so useful a subject for the historian ? 
It is the conception of the Church which enables the mind not 
only to combine, but to blend together, the pastoral simplicity of 
the primitive times of mankind and the elaborate civilization 
of later ages ; — to bring into one collection all the character- 
istics of all the climes and regions of the world ; — to bring all 
specimens of the human family, " from the north and from the 
south, and from the east and from the west," and make them 
" sit down " before us " in the kingdom of Cod." Nor can I 



* Arnold's Lectures on History. 



F 



66 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



doubt that the peculiar strength, and freedom, and versatility of 
the modern European intellect are, to a great extent, due to the 
historical character of Christianity. No one can read, in- 
telligently, so much as the prime documents of our faith, even 
in a vernacular translation, without feeling himself transported 
into a region where the modes of conception and of expression, 
the events and the institutions to be met with, are strikingly 
different from those which surround him with the associations 
of everyday life ; without, in short, finding himself, for the 
time, emancipated from the mere influence of the present, and 
brought under that of the distant and the past. Nor could 
anything have secured such a potent and salutary influence 
to history over the human mind as the indissoluble tie by which 
it is connected with religion ; the feeling that, in our nearest 
and most intimate relations, we are personally connected, as 
members of one body, with the remotest past and the illimitable 
future, — linked in one unbroken living chain, with patriarchs 
and prophets, and ajoostles and martyrs, — heirs with them of the 
same promise, and waiting with them for the same completion 
of the great mystery of God. And it is w T orth observing that 
Providence has so arranged matters, that the Eastern world, — 
to which the language and habits of thought contained in 
Scripture were most familiar, — seems destined to receive back 
its lessons, modified by the peculiarities of Western civilization 
and European teaching. In those nations where the language 
of Christianity was, as it were, a native voice, it produced least 
influence at first as a source of permanent civilization. It was 
the leaven of foreign associations which caused a fermentation 
in the Western mind ; and, from the blended mass which was 
the product of that fermentation, it seems destined to pass back 
to the realms from which it came, in a form fitted to produce 
there a similar effect. 

In the same degree, then, as any system has a tendency to " 
break the connexion between history and religion, in that 
same degree it tends to deprive civilization itself of one of its 
chief safeguards, — to withdraw from effective operation one of 
the most powerful causes which now stimulate research and 
bring the minds of the present generation into contact with 
those of the past. If the mind be referred immediately, for 
religious guidance, not to an historical document, but to a 



Essay IL] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



67 



supposed infallible authority of the present Church, or to the sup- 
posed infallible authority of each man's fancy and feelings, the 
influences favourable to barbarism are so far restored: and 
I think the visible results of both experiments, so far as either 
has been consistently worked out, are such as to show that a 
retrogression towards barbarism would be their most probable 
consequence. To look only at the present — to live in the pre- 
sent — shape our habits by the present — adopt, at every change, 
the vogue of the day — and cast aside whatever we cannot 
accommodate to the taste of our own generation — this is to do 
our utmost to restore barbarity, and sink us below the level on 
which God and nature intended us to be placed. And hence 
we may find fresh reason for admiring the wisdom of the Divine 
economy which, in the case of the Jewish and of the Christian 
Church alike, withdrew, after a while, the lining voice of inspired 
guides, and substituted for them, as the ultimate basis of faith,, 
a written historical record of -their teaching; thus building the 
Church, as a continuous body through all ages, on that founda- 
tion of the apostles and prophets, of which Jesus Christ Himself 
is the chief corner-stone. 

16. But then it will be said, — "Is not Christianity a Gospel 
to be preached to the poor? and how are the mean and 
illiterate to judge of the historical evidences of Christianity ?" 

Now, undoubtedly, not in religious matters alone, but in. 
respect of almost every useful truth alike — moral, scientific, 
economical, political — the uneducated and ill-educated classes 
labour under peculiar disadvantages : and this, so far as it is a 
difficulty, is a difficulty upon every hypothesis which admits a 
benevolent Providence and recognises a difference between 
truth and falsehood.* The true lesson to be derived from the 
circumstance is, that we are bound, as far as we can, to raise 
the condition of our meaner brethren, and make them more 
and more capable of judging for themselves. Still, however, 
no doubt, great difference will continue to subsist: nor will 
it ever be possible to equalize all understandings, or make 
the opportunities and capacities of improvement the same 
for every mind. But each class must be contented, in this 



* The difficulties attending the re- 
jection of these heing all the marks of 
design and benevolent intention in the 



structure of nature and the course of 
history. 

F 2 



68 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



as in other cases, with such an amount of evidence as its 
circumstances will allow : and, if the upper classes would faith- 
fully do then- duty, this amount of evidence would not be small 
in any case. 

Let it be observed that the form of this objection allows us to 
assume that Christianity is true; that it is capable of being 
proved true by rational evidence to well-informed persons; 
that, among men of literary attainments, it can hold its ground 
with the weapons of argument ; that it needs not to fear any 
amount of light, or shrink from any examination however 
searching ; and, assuming this, let us consider what the condition 
of the lower classes would have been, if the Church had faith- 
fully done its duty. The Christian religion would then come 
before them as a religion manifestly subserving no interested 
temporal ends — encumbered with no artifices of priestcraft — 
notoriously based, from the first, upon the ground of rational 
evidence, and maintaining itself • through all generations upon 
that ground alone, — open to all challengers, and ready at al 
times to give a reason of its hope to every one demanding it ; — ■ 
and can it be said that this would not be good evidence to them 
of its truth ; and evidence of the same kind as that upon which 
they must rely, from their circumstances, for the truth of almost 
everything of importance at all removed beyond the sphere of 
their own immediate experience ?* It is the putting of Christi- 
anity upon other grounds ; it is the claim of authority to silence 
doubt ; it is the discouragement of inquiry, the contempt of 
reason, the depreciation of intellect in religious matters ; it is 
the shrinking from light and correction, the suffering pure 
truth to be encrusted with prejudices and mistakes for fear of 
unsettling men's minds ; it is the borrowing of the arts and 
language that are the common signs of imposture by the friends 
of truth, and leaving its own bold speech and open ways to its - 
enemies ; it is these unworthy methods that deprive the lower 
classes of the safeguards which, with such a religion, they 
might and ought to have for the security of their faith. The 
Providence of God has linked all classes together in mutual 



* See an interesting statement of 
the nature of the evidence within the 
reach of the lower orders, in Arch- 



bishop Whately's ' Easy Lessons ' on 
the Evidences, pp. 23-27. 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 



69 



dependence, so that, "if one member suffer, all the members 
suffer with it ; " and the Gospel cannot be preached to the poor, 
if the well-instructed scribes do not take the only measures by 
which it can possibly be preached with effect. 

17. But, even of direct evidence, the amount is not slight that 
is within the reach of the humbler classes. There is much of 
most persuasive evidence of the truth of Christianity which not 
only requires no dialectical skill to make it felt, but which cannot 
be drawn out and stated in its full force by any amount of 
dialectical skill. Let any one consider with himself what the 
nature of the evidence is upon which he has formed his judg- 
ment of the characters of the persons with whom he converses 
in daily life. What a medley of slight traits, looks, gestures, 
chance expressions, little circumstances, each, perhaps, ambi- 
guous in itself, but all conspiring in one definite impression, 
will it appear! And all these he has gathered in and com- 
bined, not by a consciously logical process, watching for and 
sifting each scruple of evidence as it arose, and then de- 
liberately putting them together, like a clever advocate to 
make a case ; but unconsciously, and by a kind of instinct, 
the mind has drawn its inference from these little circum- 
stances which he can remember, and from a thousand other 
evanescent phenomena which he cannot now recall. And yet 
all this evidence was good evidence, upon which he unhesi- 
tatingly relies. 

Now such is the reasonable evidence which the Scriptures 
themselves yield to the candid and attentive reader, who is 
neither searching for proof nor watching for objections. It 
deposits, as it were, the practical persuasion of its own truth- 
fulness and honesty by a thousand artless traits while we 
converse with its pages. "If we may judge," says Jackson, 
" of the truth of men's writings by their outward form or 
character, as we do of men's honesty by their looks, speech, or 
behaviour, what history in the world bears so perfect a 
resemblance to things done and acted, or yields (without further 
testimony than its own) so full assurance of a true narration ?" 
[Works, vol. i. p. 27.] Men who never consciously framed a 
syllogism have felt, and are daily feeling, the force of such 
evidence. They are continually perusing the accounts of 
miracles so numerous and so striking that the witnesses of them 



70 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



could not be mistaken, and yet embedded indissolubly* in a 
narrative so artless, so grave, so honest, so intelligent, as 
palpably to be no product of fraud or fancy ; and, without 
.any elaborate criticism or detailed process of deduction, their 
mind takes the impression which a book so circumstanced is 
naturally and reasonably fitted to impart. Thus many a mind 
that has scarcely ever felt a doubt, or heard of an infidel in 
Christian lands, has, in reality, based its faith upon rational 
evidence. Its belief has not been built amidst the noise of 
hammers and the ring of axes, but has grown up, "a noise- 
less structure," from the ground of an honest and true 
heart. 

18. In some respects, indeed, the result of the unlimited de- 
velopment of critical inquiry abroad has been to diminish, rather 
than increase the difficulties of comparatively unlearned readers. 
Almost the only infidel theory which is quite intelligible to the 
lower orders, is that coarse one which treats the New Testament 
-as a mere forgery throughout, or ascribes the origin of our re- 
ligion to gross fraud and imposture. Now, if there be any certain 
result of German criticism at all, it has been to show that any 
such theory is utterly untenable. The Wolfenbiittel Fragments 
were almost the last shameful effort in that direction, and their 
track is a road which no one, with the smallest pretensions to 
literary character, would now venture to pursue. Countless 
other evasions of the plain force of evidence, each contradictory 
of the other, and each rejected with contempt by almost every 
one but its author, have been invented ; but there is, except at 
Tubingen, no disposition to return to what may be called the old 
orthodox system of infidelity. To men of plain common sense, if 
they fully understood the whole state of the case, it would ap- 
pear that all the premisses are granted which render inevitable 
an admission of the substantial truth of Christianity. Put, for 
example, Paul's undoubted Epistles, with Luke's Gospel and 
Acts, into the hands of a plain ordinary Englishman, and tell 
him, " It is no longer questioned that these letters are the 



* " The miracles in the Bible," says 
Bolingbroke, " are not, like those in 
Livy, detached pieces that do not dis- 
turb the civil history, which goes on 
.very well without them . . . But 



the whole history is founded on them ; 
it consists of little else ; and if it were 
not a histoiy of them, it would be a 
history of nothing." 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



71 



genuine work of Paul ; it is no longer questioned that the 
writer of the other Books was his companion, who compiled 
them while the men were still alive, who had conversed with 
Jesus, "and seen Him crucified ; it is no longer doubted that 
Paul and Luke were sincere and honest men who had no 
design to impose upon their hearers ; and the alternatives 
before you are either to admit that Christianity was really 
grounded upon miracles, or to explain these documents by the 
methods of Paulus, or Strauss, or Weisse, or some other 
Naturalistic or Mythic Doctor ;" — let this, I say, be the issue 
placed before an Englishman of ordinary common sense and 
information, and there can be little doubt that he would regard 
the first alternative as far less prodigiously incredible than the 
second. The case stands thus : 

19. The origin of the Christian religion is not one of those 
events so distant as to be lost in a fabulous antiquity. 
Whatever gave rise to it occurred at a period of which we know 
a great deal, in a civilized world, and within historic times; 
and was something which enabled the first preachers to make 
more converts among enemies in five years, than our most active 
missionaries have made in five centuries. Within no lonp; 
time after the death of Jesus we find Christian Churches 
diffused in the most distant places over this civilized world, 
continually growing in numbers and importance, under the 
eyes and in spite of the hostility of their powerful neigh- 
bours. The consentient tradition of all these Churches ascribes 
their foundation to the first Disciples of Jesus Christ, and 
ascribes to those Disciples the Gospel that He had been raised 
from the dead, and that this Kesurrection, with its preceding 
and accompanying miracles, was the ground of their faith. 
Their creeds, their sacraments, their universal observance of 
Easter and the weekly Lord's day, all embody this tradition. 
These Churches are not without written historical records.* 
They put forward, with one consent, a body of documents, 
giving a detailed account of Christ's life, and death, and resur- 



* " It is allowed," says Mr. Westcott, 
"by those who have reduced the 
genuine Apostolic works to the nar- 
rowest limits, that from the time of 
Irenseus [i.e. the latter part of the 
second century] the New Testament 



was composed essentially of the same 
books as we receive at present, and 
that they were regarded with the same 
reverence as is now shown to them." — 
History of the Canon, p. 8. 



72 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



rection, and of the first preaching and fortunes of his Apostles, 
and embracing a collection of letters from some of those Apostles 
themselves. With respect to many of these writings, no literary 
man of any character, at present, doubts their genuineness. 
With respect to most of the rest, it is at any rate agreed that 
they are not mere forgeries of a late age, but books written in 
good faith, at a date when the true history of the times they 
refer to was easily to be obtained. The testimony of these 
documents is the same as the tradition of the Churches. They 
put the Christian religion upon the evidence of miraculous 
facts, and specially of Christ's Resurrection, as attested by the 
alleged witnesses of it, in the very place where He had been 
executed as a malefactor, and in the face of the very persons by 
whom He had been condemned and slain. 

What we are called upon to believe is — that all the Churches 
were mistaken as to the grounds of their own faith ; that all the 
documents, and the Apostles themselves, have given a wrong 
account of it ; that the belief in the religion was not grounded 
on the belief in the miracles, but that the belief in the miracles 
was grounded on the belief in the religion ; that Jesus, who (if 
He wrought no miracles and was the subject of no miracles) 
contradicted, in every circumstance of his birth, and education, 
and teaching, and life, and death, the best established and most 
cherished notions of all around Him concerning the promised 
Messiah, was believed, in spite of all, to be that Messiah ; that 
miracles were ascribed to Him because the Messiah ought to 
have wrought miracles ; that He was believed to have risen 
again because it suddenly occurred to somebody that He ought 
to have risen again ; and that, by such an easy and intelligible 
process as this, a creed of fables was transmuted into a creed of 
facts, and stamped indelibly, and with one impression, upon 
the faith and institutions of the great Christian communities 
throughout the world. 

This is, in plain words, the theory of the origin of Christianity 
corrected to the latest results of Continental criticism ; and 
it seems to amount to this — that Christianity had no 
origin at all. It is, indeed, not criticism that has spon- 
taneously yielded these results ; but it is the a priori prejudice 
against miracles which has forced criticism upon this strange 
enterprise. 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



73 



20. Let any one take up (it is almost forgotten now in Ger- 
many, but may be still met with in England) Dr. Strauss's £ Life 
of Jesus/ and lie will see at once that the author is all through 
merely working out a foregone conclusion. Not one of his 
orthodox predecessors in the seventeenth century ever set 
himself with more dogged resolution to fight his way through 
all difficulties in defence of the verbal inspiration, scientific 
accuracy, and textual integrity of every jot and tittle in the 
Hebrew Scriptures, and find a way, or make one, to the goal 
which he had determined to reach than Strauss does to destroy 
it. And so with his successors ; the very multitude and dis- 
cordance of their theories is a witness to their insufficiency. 
They are the struggles of a strong animal in toils which 
he cannot break. The favourable posture for an infidel is 
that of an objector ; when he is forced to recognise the necessity 
of having something positive on his own side, he finds his 
own difficulties greater than those over which he has been 
exulting in the case of his antagonists ; and the end has been 
that, in Germany, thinking men are either returning to the faith 
of their fathers, or laying the detailed examination of the 
phenomena of Christianity aside as an insoluble problem. And 
in reality, the greater part of the panic which has lately spread 
among us, from the reappearance of the infidel controversy 
in England, has arisen from the security, the unhesitating 
acquiescence, of the previous generation. In the general silence 
of objectors, in the general recognition, which pervaded our 
whole literature, of the unquestionable truth of Christianity, 
men had ceased to reflect particularly upon the rational 
grounds of their faith. The authority of the Bible became a 
kind of axiom, and everything that was supposed to be involved 
in that authority was grasped with the same firmness of belief. 
In such a state of mind, the whole of its creed is no firmer than 
the weakest part ; and hence, when open attacks began again to 
be made upon what men had regarded from their childhood as 
essential portions of Christianity — when attention was called to 
the real difficulties which beset many passages, the undoubtedly 
strong objections which may be urged against many articles — 
when writers of learning and ability were quoted as authorities, 
not for, but against, the traditions of their youth — an alarm arose 
as if the whole of religion was giving way. This clanger always 



74 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



attends the concentration of a whole system of belief upon a 
single point. It is like embarking a whole army at once, for a 
long and perilous voyage, in one gigantic transport. If the 
ship hold together, much is gained in speed and convenience ; 
but if the vessel sink, all goes with her to the bottom. 

It is thus with the Komanist, who builds all on the authority 
of the present Church. If one portion, however small or slight, 
of the complicated structure of his creed be shaken, the basis of 
it is shaken, and the entire edifice falls to ruin in a moment. 
And so, when the feelings of the reader have been made the 
test of the inspiration of Scripture; — when men have been 
accustomed to say, "We feel, from the echo in our bosoms, 
from the warm sentiments of devotion which it excites, from the 
sensible comfort that it gives, that this is and must be no less 
than the voice of God speaking with us ;" — in such a case the 
decision of criticism against the genuineness or authenticity of a 
single book, or even a single passage, becomes a thing formid- 
able to the whole of faith. If the religious sense, on which the 
reader relies for distinguishing the divine from the human, have 
erred in any case, its assumed infallibility is gone ; the test 
itself of inspiration is shown to be fallacious ; and he is left 
doubtful whether the whole of his belief may not be founded on 
a mere delusion. 

But a faith founded upon rational evidence is not liable to be 
thus shaken. If it be shown, for example, that a particular 
verse in the 1st Epistle of John, or even a long passage in his 
Gospel, is an interpolation, this does not subvert the proof of 
the genuineness of the rest of those pieces ; since the evidence 
for the disputed parts, and the evidence for the rest of the 
documents, is not the same ; and such a faith is grounded upon 
and proportioned to the evidence. And if the evidences of 
Christianity, — their nature and degrees, — and even the first 
elements of the criticism of our sacred books, were made an 
ordinary part of the instruction of every tolerably educated 
man, we should be free from those periodical panics which are 
a disgrace to the intelligence of a Christian nation. 

As it is, when suddenly put upon searching the reasons 
of the faith that is in them, men hardly know at what point 
to begin, and in their confusion often seize first upon the 
weakest. 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



75 



21. In dealing, either for tlie satisfaction of ourselves or of 
others, with sceptical objections, it is of vast importance to 
consider in what order they are to be dealt with. If we suffer 
ourselves to fall into the error of regarding each part of our 
position as equally strong in itself, the consequences may prove 
calamitous. 

There are, for example, narratives of miraculous occurrences 
in the Bible, which, if we met with them separate from the rest, 
or connected with documents of a different character — if we 
found them in a life of Pythagoras or Apollonius — we should 
reasonably set aside as mere legendary stories, or exaggerations 
of purely natural events. It would be a grievous oversight to 
stake the truth of Christianity at once upon the separate 
defence of such passages as these. The reasonable course is to 
waive them at the outset ; — to let them stand over for consider- 
ation in their due place ; — and to consider, first of all, the most 
important and best circumstanced facts upon which the claims 
of Eevelation rest. If these can be established, the others will 
either be not worth fighting about, or will follow as a matter of 
course. "Supposing it acknowledged," says Bishop Butler, 
"that our Saviour spent some years in a course of working 
miracles ; there is no more presumption worth mentioning 
against His having exerted this miraculous power in a certain 
degree greater than in a certain degree less ; in one or two 
more instances, than in one or two fewer ; in this, than in 
another manner." (Analogy, part ii. c. 2.) 

It is quite true — and should always be distinctly allowed — 
that nervous excitement, the strong tonic of a powerful faith 
and a lively imagination — perhaps also some subtle influence, 
such as animal magnetism — are capable of producing wonderful 
cures of some disorders ; and that, if some of the narratives of 
miraculous cures in the Gospel and the Acts were all the mi- 
raculous narratives relating to the first planting of Christianity 
that we had, it might be reasonable to suppose the cures effected 
by some such agencies as these. But if other miracles remain 
which are incapable of any such solution, and sufficient to prove 
the claims of Christianity to a divine origin, then the natural 
explanations, even of the former, cease to be the more probable ; 
because such natural effects as they assume, though possible, are 
more or less unlikely ; whereas there is no improbability in sup- 



76 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



posing that a person endowed with the power of miracles exerted 
it upon a particular occasion. It is improbable that any man 
ever lived in Greece of such strength as is attributed to Hercules ; 
but if it were once established that such a person lived at a 
given time, there would be nothing improbable in any story of a 
particular exertion of that strength, merely on account of its 
surpassing the vigour of ordinary mortals. 

Upon similar principles, we should carefully avoid entangling 
the question of the general truth of Christianity with that of the 
nature or extent of the inspiration of the sacred writers. There 
are, indeed, some arguments for Christianity which tend to prove 
directly the inspiration, in some form or other, of those writers ; 
as, for instance, that derived from the omission in their works of 
topics which men in their circumstances would naturally have 
introduced, an argument which has been pressed with great force 
by the Archbishop of Dublin in his first series of Essays * But, 
in general, it is evident that our first concern with the sacred 
writers is in their character of witnesses ; and we should care- 
fully distinguish in our minds the objections against their 
character as inspired persons, and objections against their cha- 
racter as trustworthy relators of facts. The question of the nature 
and extent of their inspiration legitimately comes in after the 
main facts have been established, which prove our Saviour's 
divine mission, and the promise of supernatural assistance which 
He made to His Apostles. 

Some parts, indeed, of Scripture, such as the prophecies, claim 
inspiration directly, and on the face of them ; and in the case of 
these, to disprove their inspiration is to disprove their trust- 
worthiness. 

But, meanwhile, in the interpretation of such writings, it 
cannot be reasonable to put out of sight the character which 
they claim, and insist upon expounding them as if they were not 
inspired at all.f This is a principle of criticism which is never 
forgotten, except in the case of Scripture. If the Christian 
revelation be really the completion of the Jewish — if Christ and 
His Church be really the development of the mystery of God, 
which was gradually wrought and prepared for in all the pre- 



* See also Bishop Hind's very valu- I f See ' Charge of the Archbishop of 
able work on Inspiration. | Dublin,' 1861. Parker and Son, London. 



Essay II.] 



EVIDENCES OF CHEISTI A NIT Y. 



77 



vious dispensations — and if the prophets of those dispensations 
really " spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," it is no 
more unreasonable to give their lofty expressions a secondary 
reference to the coming glory than to find allusions to Augustus 
in the ' JEneid/ or to Elizabeth and Mary in the ' Faery Queen,' 
or to the Koman Kepublic in an ode to Horace's ship.* And, 
indeed, the very possibility of such an interpretation — the 
continuity of thought, character, and plan, in a literature spread 
over so many ages, which makes it feasible — has ever struck 
thoughtful men, from Justin Martyr to Pascal, as strong 
evidence for the inspiration of that literature. 

22. But to pursue these topics further would be only to repeat 
what has been a thousand times said already ; and when infi- 
delity comes to drop its reserve, and tell us plainly what the 
deep objections are that are now only hinted at in more or less 
doubtful forms of insinuation, it will most probably be seen that 
there is very little new matter to be produced in this great con- 
troversy, and that the Church is assailed in the nineteenth 
century with no stronger artillery than her walls have borne for 
eighteen centuries already. My earnest wish is, that those who 
think they can speak would speak out and let us know the worst. 

ev he (fidet /ecu oXecrcrov. 

And if the literal truth of Christianity fall, it will certainly be 
a final and total subversion of the whole religion. Let no one 
suppose that its spirit can remain living and acting among us 
after its body has been decomposed. Its spirit will return to 
God who gave it. " That man," says one who was no narrow 



* See Hurd. on the ' Prophecies, ' \ 
and Warburton's ' Divine Legation,' b. 
vi. "In the case of prophecies with a 
double sense," I have observed else- 
where, "we may be often sure of the 
secondary application of some parts of 
them, even though we may see clearly 
that other parts have no such applica- j 

tion Thus, for example, no one ! 

doubts that, in Spenser's Chronicle of ! 
Faery Kings (b. ii. c. x.), the following- 
lines — 

He left two sonnes, of which fair Elferon, 

The eldest brother, did untimely die ; 

Whose emptie place the mighty Oberon 

Doubly supplied in spousall and dominion, dc. — 1 



He, dying, left the fairest Tanaquill 
Him to succeed therein, by his last will. 
Fairer and nobler liveth none this howre, 
Ne like in grace, ne like in learned skill, kc. — 

No one, I say, doubts that these lines 
refer to Henry VIII. and Queen Eliza- 
beth, though there is no consistent 
parallel between the succession of Faery 
kings and British monarchs." — Note to 
Butler's Analogy, p. 203. 
} To argue from the extravagant abuse 
of types and double senses against their 
existence, is like arguing that if we ad- 
mit figures of speech in any writing, 
we cannot be sure that anything in it 
is literal. 



78 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay II. 



bigot, "who does not hold Christ's earthly life, with all its 
miracles, to be as properly and really historical as any event in 
history, and wiio does not receive all points of the Apostolic 
creed with the fullest conviction, I do not conceive to be a 
Protestant Christian. And as for that Christianity which is 
such according to the fashion of the modern philosophers and pan- 
theists, without a personal God, without immortality, without 
an individuality of man, without historical faith, it may be a 
very ingenious and subtle philosophy, but it is no Christianity 
at all."* 



* Niebuhr, quoted by Neander in the Preface to the 3rd edition of his ' Life of 
Christ/ 



ESSAY III. 
PKOPHEC Y. 



CONTENTS OF ESSAY III. 



1. Introduction. 

2. The Divine Mission of the Pro- 

phets — Definition of the term 
" Prophet." 

3. Definition of the title " Seer." 

4. Definition of the designation " Man 

of God." 

5. Definition of the phrase " Man of 

the Spirit." 

6. Scripture contrast of the false pro- 

phet. 

7. The Power to predict the Fu- 

ture — Popular belief of the He- 
brews. 

8. Claims of the Prophets themselves. 

9. Justification of their claims by the 

fulfilment of their predictions : 
Examples from Nahum — Hosea 
—Amos — Micah— Isaiah. 

10. Groundlessness of recent insinua- 

tions shown by the fulfilment of 
a remarkable prediction — Un- 
trustworthiness of Rationalist 
criticism. 

11. Predictions of Moses concerning 

the destinies of Israel not disputed 
or explained by Rationalists or 
Essayists. 



12. Messianic Prophecy — The real 

question at issue : Whether the 
New Testament or German critics 
are to be our guides in interpret- 
ing prophecy ? 

13. Variety and diversity of opinions in 

the German Rationalist School 
unbounded. 

14. Doctrine of our Lord and the Apos- 

tles. 

15. In citing or applying passages of 

the prophecies, attention must be 
paid to the mind and intention of 
the speaker or writer. 

16. Our Lord, and, after Him, the Apos- 

tles, lay down the principle that 
past history may represent that 
which is to happen hereafter. 

17. Prophecies which our Lord and the 

Apostles interpret as specially 
spoken in reference to Christ and. 
Christianity — Belief of orthodox 
writers and Rationalist divines 
that Christ claimed to be the 
Messiah foretold by the Prophets. 

18. Genuineness of the Book of Daniel. 

19. Genuineness of Isaiah xl.-xlvi. 

20. Interpretation of Isaiah liii. 

21. Conclusion. 



PROPHECY. 



1. Hebrew prophecy, like the Hebrew people, stands without 
parallel in the history of the world. Other nations have had 
their oracles, diviners, augurs, soothsayers, necromancers. The 
Hebrews alone have possessed prophets, and a prophetic litera- 
ture. It is useless, therefore, to go to the manticism of the 
heathen to get light as to the nature of Hebrew prophecy.* 
To follow the Kabbis of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
is just as vain. The only reliable sources of information on the 
subject are the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. 
They contain documents written when the voice of prophecy 
still was heard, and it would be strange indeed to interpret 
coeval testimonies by theories devised by heathenized Rabbis, f 
nearly two thousand years after Hebrew prophecy had ceased. 
Even a novice in the study of the Bible perceives the falsehood 
of the Eabbinic assertions, that the prophetic gift dwells only in 
a man who is learned, powerful, and rich ; and that no man can 
attain to it except by study, combined with a certain requisite 
mental conformation.^ The attempt to explain prophetic inspi- 
ration by the phenomena of animal magnetism, seems to be still 
farther removed from sobriety of judgment, and Christian reve- 
rence^ From the Old Testament alone, illustrated by the New, 



* Vitringa, Typus doctr. prophet., in 
' Observationes Sacrse,' lib. vii. p. 4 ; 
Carpzov, 'Introd. adLibr. Bibl. V. T.,' 
Part iii., p. 7 ; Knobel, ' Prophetis- 
mus der Hebraer,' i. 21 ; C. I. Nitsch, 
4 System der Christliclien Lehre, ' p. 
88 ; Tholuck, ' Die Proplieten unci ihre 
Weissagungen,' p. 1, 73, 

f Maimonides and. Ms school, whom 
Smith and others follow, departed from 
the ancient tradition, and endeavoured 
to remodel Judaism according to the 
Greek philosophy, with which they 
became acquainted through Arab trans- 
lations. Maimonides himself is remark- 
able for his determined effort to elimi- 
nate the supernatural from the Old 



Testament, and may in truth be re- 
garded as the father of Kationalist 
Theology. 

% 'Doctor Perplexorum,' p. ii. c. 3. 
Buxtorf s Translation, p. -284 ; « Hil- 
choth Yesode Hattorah,' c. vii. ; Sal- 
vador, ' Institutions de Moise,' i. p. 
192-197. 

§ " The word which we, after the 
LXX., translate Prophets, means in the 
Hebrew, Inspired. Their original de- 
signation was Seers, men who saw. 
Clairvoyance (the so-called magnetic 
sight) and prophesying in the ecstatic 
state were of remote antiquity amongst 
the Jews and their neighbours ; and 
Joseph, a man of a waking spirit, who, 

G 



82 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



is it possible to learn the nature of prophecy and the prophetic 
office. To interpret the prophetic writings with accuracy, a 
familiar acquaintance with the original language is necessary. 
But a correct idea of the prophet's work and office, and of the 
nature of prophecy in general, may be obtained from any ordinary 
translation of the Old Testament by any intelligent reader. 
The student of the English Bible may not be able to explain 
the meaning of a rare Hebrew word, or an obscure and doubtful 
passage, nor to perceive beauties and peculiarities, observable 
only in the original. He must also occasionally miss the force 
of particular expressions, and sometimes put up with an incor- 
rect rendering. But he can, without any Hebrew, understand 
the character and history of Moses or Elijah, and know that 
Elijah foretold a drought, or Elisha sudden plenty : that Micaiah 
was a true prophet, and the son of Chenaanah an impostor, just 
as easily and correctly as Gesenius, or Ewald, or Bunsen. 

For this no modern criticism is necessary, and in such matters 
no reader of the Authorized Version ought to allow himself to be 
mystified or silenced by an appeal to foreign critics, much less 
to be disturbed in his faith, as if he could not apprehend the 
general teaching of the Bible without profound knowledge of 
the Semitic dialects, and the latest results of German criticism. 
All these things are good in their place, but the great and 
essential outlines of Divine truth, whether in reference to Deity, 
or piety, or morality, or prophecy, are perceptible without them ; 
and it would be just as reasonable to assert that without these 
things we cannot understand the Ten Commandments, as to tell 
the reader of the Bible in the vernacular, that he cannot grasp 
the scope of prophecy, or know whether it has been fulfilled, 
until he has spent years in the study of Hebrew and of modern 
commentators. The essential features of prophetic truth are 
too boldly drawn to be hidden by the veil of translation, and 
have been as plain and visible in all ages to the Greek, the 
Syrian, and the Arab, as to the polyglot critic of the nineteenth 
century. A knowledge of the Hebrew text, indeed, enables its 
possessor at once to reject such cavils as those lately revived,* 



as a growing youth, possessed a natural 
gift of second sight, was able as man 
to see visions in his cup, just as the 
Arab boy in Cairo still sees them in his 



bowl." — Baron Bunsen, Gott in der 
GescMcMe, p. 141. 
* « Essays and Eeviews,' p. G8, G9. 



Essay III.] 



PROPHECY. 



83 



that tlie Hebrew words in Ps. ii. 12. for "Kiss the Son," ought 
to be translated " Worship purely," or that the Hebrew word 
for "pierce," in Ps. xxii. 17. ought to be rendered "Like a 
lion," or that in Isaiah ix. 6. (Heb. 5.), the words " Mighty God " 
ought to be " A strong and mighty one." But the English 
reader still sees from the context, in spite of these alterations, 
that the 2nd Psalm speaks of an universal King, greater than 
David, that the 22nd Psalm portrays one persecuted to death 
by man, delivered by God, after whose deliverance "All the 
ends of the earth remember themselves and turn unto the Lord," 
and that in Isaiah ix., the prophet speaks of a marvellous child, 
who is also " The Everlasting Father, of the increase of whose 
government there shall be no end, to order and establish his 
kingdom for ever ;" words amply sufficient to teach the reader 
that Isaiah spake of no mere man.* The Hebrew student is 
astonished, in the present state of Biblical learning, to see such 
objections resuscitated. He knows that the translation " Wor- 
ship purely " was invented by Kabbinic controversialists ; that 
the version " Kiss the Son " is defended even by such an oppo- 
nent of Christianity as Aben Ezra amongst the Rabbis, and by 
De Wette amongst the Rationalists ; and adopted by Moses Men- 
delssohn, Fiirst, and his fellow translators, who have " Huldigt 
dem Sonne :" and that the ancient Jews interpreted this Psalm 
of the Messiah! — that the rendering " Mighty God " is adopted 
and defended by Hitzig and Knobel.J But, without depreciating 
the value of Hebrew learning and criticism, it may be safely 
asserted, that the nature and teaching of prophecy may be 
collected from any tolerable version : and, therefore, the Apostles, 
guided from above, did not perplex the Gentiles by discussing 
the differences between the LXX and the Hebrew Text, but 
wisely used, and sanctioned the use of that Greek Version, which 



* Luther, who translates " Kraft, 
Held," had no doubts as to the right 
interpretation of the passage. 

f This is confessed even by Eashi, 
in the 11th century, who says, " Our 
Eabbis interpreted this Psalm of the 
Messiah ;" to which was added in the 
older copies of his commentary, " But 
in order to answer the heretics, it is 
better to interpret it of David," words 
still found in the commentary on the 
xxist Psalm. 



% Knobel's reasons for rejecting the 
translation " strong and mighty one," 
are thus expressed: — " Because never 
occurs as an adjective, and if adjective, 
ought to be after "nS! The phrase 
y\2L$ 4 mighty God ' occurs x. 21. 
Elsewhere also 7)2| is adjective to 
as e.g. Deut. x. 17; Jer. xxxii. 18." — 
' Commentary on Isaiah,' p. 73. 

G 2 



84 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



they found providentially prepared, already partially known 
amongst the heathen, and at that time regarded with reverence 
by the Jews. They understood how Divine Truth may be 
apprehended by the unlearned in a translation, and hidden 
from the wise and prudent with all their knowledge of the 
original.* With regard to Hebrew prophecy, there are three 
things equally perceptible in the original and in the versions, 
and at present specially requiring attention. These are : — the 
supernatural mission of the Prophets, their power to predict 
future events, and their announcements of a coming Saviour. 

2. A prophet is a man specially called and sent by God to 
communicate a Divine revelation.f This is apparent in the first 
place from the names given to those Divine messengers. They 
are called Prophets, seers, men of God, men of the Spirit. The 
Hebrew word for prophet (Nabi) is, according to its etymology, 
supposed by some to signify "an inspired person;" by others, 
with more probability, " An utterer or announcer." { Its mean- 
ing, and that of the English word prophet, as used in the Old 
Testament, are fully explained by a comparison of two passages 
in the book of Exodus : the first vii. 1, " See I have made thee 
a God to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet." 
The second, iv. 16, " And he shall speak for thee (A. V. be thy 
spokesman), and thou, thou shalt be to him for a God." What 
is prophet in the first is mouth in the second. Moses was to be 
as God to Aaron, Aaron as prophet or mouth or spokesman to 
Moses ; Moses to communicate to Aaron, and Aaron to declare the 
message to Pharaoh and the people. According to this, prophet 
means the declarer or interpreter of the Divine will. He is 
one who does not speak of himself (dcj> iavrov), the workings of 
his own mind, but declares the mind and will of God, and 
speaks what he receives from with out. § 



* Matt. xi. 25. 

t Et hue forte' respexernnt Patres 
ecclesise cum Prophetas QeoXoyovs, re- 
rum divinarum consultcs dixere. Ita 
Pseudo-Dionysius, cap. 8, de Coel. Hie- 
rarchia, p. 95. twv ®eo\6yow els, 6 

Zaxap'ias, Sec in quern locum 

ita commentatur Pachymeres, p. 104. 
robs lepobs TrpocprjTas @eo\6yovs (pr](r\u, 
cos Xoyovs 0eov rj/juv i^ayyeXKovras. 
Carpzov, 'Introd. ad Lib. Bibl. V. T.,' 
Part iii. p. 4. 



% Carpzov, 'Introd. ad Lib. Bibl. 
V. T.,' Part iii., p. 3. See Gesenius, 
' Thesaurus ;' Winer's edition of ' Simo- 
nis Lexicon ;' Knobel's ' Prophetismus,' 
i. 103 ; Bleek, ' Einleitung in das alte 
Testament,' p. 412; Theluck, 'Die 
Propheten und ihre Weissagungen,' p. 
24. 

§ Heidegger says, " N'QJ proprie est 
omnis verborum alienorum, ex alieno, 
non proprio nutu et voluntate pronun- 
ciator, orator, qui, ut K. D. Kinichi lo- 



Essay III.] 



PEOPHECY. 



85 



3. The title " Seer " * refers rather to the mode of receiving 
the Divine communication than to its utterance to others. It 
is derived from Numb. xii. 6, "If there be a prophet among 
you, I the Lord will make myself known to him in a vision 
(sight, !TK"lft)." The Seer is therefore one who receives a Divine 
communication in a vision. His vision is not the offspring of 
his own mind, but the Lord makes himself known (jmnil) to 
the prophet. It is something received from without. " Her 
prophets also find no vision from the Lord (mrTO)" (Lam. ii. 9). 
But the word " vision " does not necessarily imply ecstasy or 
symbolic representation. It is often equivalent to " The word 
of the Lord," as, in 1 Sam. iii. 1, " The word of the Lord was 
precious in those days ; there was no open vision (pin)." Samuel 
was a Seer, but "the Lord revealed himself to Samuel by the 
word of the Lord" (1 Sam. iii. 21). So the first chapter of 
Isaiah, which is destitute of all symbolic imagery, is called 
" The vision (IITn) of Isaiah;" whilst the second chapter has as 
its title, " The word that Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw (ntn)."*)* 

4. The designation, "man of God," also implies intimacy, 
communion with God, or commission from Him, as the similar 
phrases, " men of David," " men of Hezekiah," meant those who 
were in attendance on those monarchs, whom they employed ; 
and, in this sense, the prophets are called " the servants of 
Jehovah," and " the messengers of God " (2 Chron. xxxvi. 16). 

5. The phrase "man of the Spirit, ITD," (Hos. ix. 7) explains the 
agency by which the communication came, namely, by the Spirit 
of God ; as St. Peter says, " Prophecy came not at any time by 
the will of man, but holy men of God spake, being borne away 
(cj>ep6fievoi) by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet, i. 21). The Old Tes- 
tament also . makes this impetus of the Spirit the essence 
of prophecy. In Numb. xi. is related the appointment of the 
seventy elders to assist Moses. The Lord says, " I will take of 
the Spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them ;" and, 



quitur, Echo ad instar, nihil profert j 
aut profatur, nisi quod prius accepit." | 
' Exerc. Bibl.' viii. § 27. Augustine, j 
" Nihil aliud esse Prophetam Dei, nisi 
enunciatorem verboruni Dei homini- 
bus." Carpzov, ibid., p. 8. Comp. Spi- 
noza, * Tractat. Theolog. Polit.' c. 1, who 
is, with regard to prophecy, more candid 
than the Essayists. 



* For this there are two Hebrew 
words used, but which are equivalent 
in sense. They are both found in Isai. 
xxx. 10, "which say to the Seers (DWI) 
see not, and to the prophets (lit. Seers, 
D^TIH) prophesy not (see not) unto us." 

f Comp. Ps. lxxxix. 20 ; Amos i. 1 ; 
Obad. i. 1 ; Hab. ii. 2, 3 ; Nahum, i. 1. 



86 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



accordingly, in the 25th verse, it is said, " The Lord came down 
in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the Spirit that was 
upon him, and gave it to the seventy elders ; and it came to 
pass that when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied 
and did not cease." In like manner, with regard to Eldad and 
Medad, " The Spirit (ffnn) rested upon them . . . and they pro- 
phesied in the camp." That which caused these two men, as 
well as the seventy elders, to prophesy, was the resting of the 
Spirit upon them, and, therefore, Moses makes this resting of 
the Spirit equivalent to the gift of prophecy. " Would God 
that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Loed 
would put his Spirit upon them." * From this passage alone we 
learn, 1st, That it is the resting of the Spirit of the Lord upon 
a man that makes that man a prophet. It was not the spirit 
of Moses, but the Spirit that was upon Moses, that was given to 
the seventy elders, that which Moses himself calls " the Spirit 
of the Lord." We learn, in the next place, that it is the 
Lord who gives the Spirit. Moses was not able to confer it,, 
and it was given altogether independently of Moses to the 
two men, not present at the tabernacle. The persons upon 
whom it was conferred, did not choose themselves, and did 
not take the gift by their own will. Similar instruction is 
derived from the history of Saul. Samuel (1 Sam. x. 6) said 
to him, " The Spirit of the Loed will come upon thee, and 
thou shalt prophesy with them .... and when they came thither 
to the hill, behold a company of prophets met him, and the 
Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them." 
It does not appear that he had any previous qualifications, or 
preparations, or training, as required by Maimonides ; nor yet 
his servants (1 Sam. xix. 20), of whom it is said, " The Spirit 
of God was upon the messengers of Saul, and they also pro- 
phesied." And so, when he came himself on that occasion, 
certainly in no pious frame of mind, the Spirit came on him also, 
and he, like his messengers, prophesied involuntarily. They were 
(pepofievoi, borne away by the Holy Ghost, just as the wicked 
Balaam prophesied when " the Spirit of God came upon him," 
and Caiaphas unwittingly uttered a Divine oracle concerning the 
vicarious death of the Lord, " And this spake he not of 



* Compare Joel ii. 28. In the Heb. Text, iii. 1. 



Essay III.] 



PEOPHECY. 



87 



himself, aft eavrov, but being High Priest that year, he pro- 
phesied " (John xi. 51),* 

6. This view is confirmed by the Scripture contrast of the 
false prophet. He is described as one who is not sent by 
the Lord, and who has not the Spirit of God, but speaks out 
of his own heart his own imaginations. " They speak a 
vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the 
Lord — I sent them not, nor commanded them." f " They pro- 
phesy out of their own hearts — they follow their own spirit, 
and have seen nothing. They have seen vanity (N")t#) and 
lying divination, saying, The Lord saith ; and the Lord hath 
not sent them : and they have made others to hope that they 
would confirm (fulfil, D^) the word." J And therefore, even 
the Great Prophet of the Church dwells frequently upon the 
fact that He is sent, and that His doctrine is not His own. 
" My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. If any man 
will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be 
from God, etc rod Seov, or whether I speak of myself, air e^avrov. 
He that speaketh of himself, aft iavrov, seeketh his own glory." § 
As, therefore, a true prophet is one who is sent by God, who 
runs not of himself, upon whom the Spirit of God rests, who 
speaks the word of God and not his own ; and as there 
were pretenders, whom God did not send, whose words were not 
inspired by His Spirit, a test, whereby one could be distinguished 
from the other, was necessary both for the satisfaction of the 
prophet himself, and for the protection of the people from 
imposture. To have been trained in the schools of the prophets 
(for a time there were such schools ||) was not enough to con- 
stitute a man a prophet. The prophetic commission could not 
be given by the schoolmaster, nor could the doctrjn.es of men, 
or their instruction, communicate a Divine message, so as to 



* Comp. 2 Sam. xxiii. 2 ; 1 Kings, 
xxii. 24 ; 2 Chron. xxiv. 20 ; Isai. lxi. 1 ; 
J er. i. 9 ; Ezek. xi. 5 ; Joel ii. 29 ; 
(Heb. iii. 2) ; Mic. iii. 8, &c. &c. 

t Jer. xxiii. 16, 21, 32, and xiv. 14, 
&c. 

% Ezek. xiii. 2-9. 

§ John vii. 16-18 ; comp. Isai. lxi. 

|| " Concerning the origin, arrange- 
ments, and duration of the so-called 
schools of the prophets, no detailed or 



circumstantial information is found in 
the Old Testament. Schools of the 
prophets are mentioned only in the 
histories of the prophets Samuel, Eli- 
jah, and Elisha, that is from 1100-900, 
which period must therefore be re- 
garded as the time of their existence." 
Knobel, Prophet ismus, ii. 39, 50. What 
imaginative historians have written 
on this subject is, therefore, of little 
value. 



88 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



make the speaker's word the word of the Lord. Neither 
Deborah nor Huldah had thus received the prophetic call. 
Indeed it does not appear that any of the great prophets had 
been trained in those schools. Nothing less than an outward, 
clear, unmistakable call of God could satisfy the mind and 
conscience of the prophet himself. Neither inward persuasion, 
nor dream, nor ecstasy, was in itself sufficient. Moses was 
awake and in full possession of all his faculties when he saw 
a bush burning but not consumed, and heard the voice of the 
God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Samuel thought that 
Eli called, and went twice to the aged priest, before he knew 
that it was the Lord's voice ; and was, therefore, fully roused 
from slumber before he received the Divine message. Isaiah's 
eyes were opened to see the Lord on his throne, and his ears 
to hear the words " Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ?" 
Jeremiah objected his youth, and did not accept the commission 
until the Lord put forth his hand and touched his mouth. 
Ezekiel felt that " the hand of the Lord was upon him." Amos 
was a herdsman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit, and the Lord 
took him " as he followed the flock," and said, " Go, prophesy 
unto my people Israel." There was a supernatural call. A spe- 
cific message also was delivered, and therefore the prophet was 
able to say, " Hear ye the word of the Lord," " Thus saith the 
Lord." Even after this external and supernatural call, every time 
the prophet uttered a new oracle, it was the result of a new com- 
munication, and a special command. He was still unable to 
prophesy at will. He might inquire of the Lord and ask counsel, 
as Moses did in the case of the Sabbath-breaker, or of Zelophehad's 
daughters, but had no permanent habilitation to declare the will 
of God. Without this supernatural call, and without this specific 
message, no'one can, according to Scripture idiom, without great 
confusion of mind, or wilful and dishonest abuse of language, be 
said to possess anything like prophetic inspiration. The Apostles 
of the New Testament, called directly by the Lord Jesus Christ, 
moved by His Holy Spirit, and entrusted with a specific message, 
were and may be called prophets in the true sense of the word, 
for they were able to affirm that the Gospel proclaimed of them 
was " not of man, but by revelation of Jesus Christ and they 
communicated it " not in words, which man's wisdom teacheth, 
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." But to speak of Poets 



Essay III.] PEOPHECY. 89 

ancient or modern, or Philosophers, or Lawgivers, as being in- 
spired, like Moses or Isaiah, is simply to confound things Divine 
and human, and to manifest great mistiness of apprehension, or 
daring profanity of spirit. It is just as contrary to Scriptural 
statement,* and as revolting to Christian reverence, as to identify 
the prophetic character and calling with that of the demagogues of 
Greece.f Poets and Philosophers exercise the high natural gifts 
bestowed by God, according to the movings of their will or the im- 
pulse of their genius ; apply, and sometimes abuse them, according 
to the state of their hearts ; but do not pretend to any external call 
from God, nor claim for their words the reverence due to the word 
of the Almighty. The Hebrew prophets announced themselves 
as God's messengers, claimed obedience and reverence for their 
message as the word of God, and therefore carried with them 
credentials for the satisfaction of the people. These credentials 
were, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, miracle and prediction. % 
To accredit Moses as His messenger to the children of Israel, He 
empowered him to make three superhuman manifestations of 
power, saying " If they will not believe thee, neither hearken to 
the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the 
latter sign." And therefore the prophet like unto Moses, also 
appealed to His works as greater testimony than that of John the 
Baptist,§ and says, " If I had not done among them the works 
which none other man did, they had not had sin, but now have 
they both seen and hated both me and my Father." The Law 
of Moses also provided another criterion of a true or false prophet, 
in the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of his word, " When a prophet 
speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor 



* " At quamvis scientia naturalis di- 
vina sit, ejus tamen propagatores non 
possunt vocari prophetse." — Spinoza, 
Tractat. ~Theolog. Polit. Opera, torn. iii. 
p. 16. 

f Leo 'Vorlesungen,' 159, 168; Ber- 
lin, 1828 ; Salvador, as above, p. 197. 

X This is admitted even by D. F. 
Strauss : " To accredit his Divine mis- 
sion to the people, God enabled Moses 
to perform certain acts beyond ordi- 
nary human power ; and Moses refers 
to this to prove that he did not come 

of himself, but was sent by God 

Hand in hand with miracle, prediction 
appears in Biblical history as a creden- 
tial of Bevelation. Thus in the Old 



Testament God gives Moses a predic- 
tion, the fulfilment of which should 
certify his Divine mission (Exod. iii. 
12). . . . In the case of the prophets the 
occurrence of wonderful events which 
they had predicted is the proof of their 
Divine commission {1 Kings xvii. 1, 
xviii. 41, &c). The prophets also, not 
rarely, foretel the occurrence of some 
event, soon to happen, that its occur- 
rence may be a sign, that what they 
have predicted concerning the distant 
future is from God (1 Sam. ii. 34, x. 
7, and 1 Kings xiii. 3, 2 Kings xix. 29 ; 
Isai. vii. 2 ; Jer. xliv. 29). : '— Glaubens- 
lehre, vol. i. p. 86-89. 

§ John xv. 24 ; comp. Matt. xi. 1-5. 



90 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



come to pass, that is tlie thing which the Lord hath not spoken." 
(Dent, xviii. 22.) To this Jeremiah alludes when he says, " The 
prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the pro- 
phet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that 
the Lord hath truly sent him " (Jer. xxviii. 9). 

7. To declare the will of God, and deliver His message, 
whether it regarded the past, the present, or the future, was the 
prophet's great duty. And therefore, when the Jewish lawgiver 
was communicating moral or ceremonial precepts, received from 
God, and when the Messiah, in his Sermon on the Mount, was 
explaining the spirituality of the Law, they were, in the strict 
sense of the word, prophesying just as much as when Moses 
predicted the destinies of Israel, and the Lord foretold the 
destruction and treacling down of Jerusalem. To have received 
a call and message direct from God, and to deliver it, constituted 
the essence of prophetism. But if we are to form our idea 
from the Scriptures, we must admit that the Hebrew people 
believed that the prophets were endowed with, or could attain 
to, superhuman knowledge, for the benefit and advantage of His 
people. This belief was rooted in their conception of the 
Divine character. Whether we take the Hebrew Scriptures as 
inspired or not, it is an incontrovertible fact that the funda- 
mental idea of the Hebrew religion is that Jehovah is a God 
who reveals Himself to His creatures; that He has not left 
the human race to grope their way to the regions of religion or 
morality as they best can, but that from the beginning He has 
taken His children by the hand, cared for their welfare, made 
known to them His will, and marked out for them the way to 
happiness. This idea runs through all the books of the Old 
Testament, — Law, History, Psalms, Prophecy, — and is taken up 
in the New Testament, where is the fullest revelation of the love 
of our Heavenly Father to man. But the Hebrew believed not 
only in God as one who reveals Himself for the benefit of the 
race, but as the loving and watchful Father, who superintended 
all the everyday concerns of each individual, and who, though 
He dwelt in the high and holy place, yet had regard to the 
lowly, and considered nothing too small or insignificant for His 
care. This is evident in the prayer of Abraham's servant to be 
guided to Eebekah, in the increase of Jacob's cattle, in Leah's 
fruitfulness, in the answer to Hannah's prayer, not to mention 



Essay III.] 



PEOPHECY. 



91 



many similar and well-known traits in the lives of God's ancient 
saints. As, therefore, the Hebrew people, high and low, re- 
garded the prophet as a messenger from God, enlightened and 
instructed by the Holy Spirit, they ascribed to him a super- 
natural knowledge and the power to give information not 
attainable by human reasoning or sagacity — in fact the same 
power possessed by the High Priest of procuring from God a 
miraculous response by means of the Urim and Thummim : and 
as they believed in God as their Father, they trusted that He 
was interested in all their troubles and anxieties, and would 
not consider their temporal concerns too insignificant for His 
gracious consideration. Hence it is recorded that Kebekah 
went to inquire of the Lord respecting the subject of her 
anxiety. David inquired of the Lord, by means of the ephod, 
whether he should smite the Philistines and save Keiiah ; and 
again, whether the men of Keiiah would deliver him into the 
hands of Saul ; and received answers from the Lord. So Saul's 
servants thought they might go to Samuel and inquire concern- 
ing the lost asses. In like manner King Jehoshaphat wished 
to inquire of the Lord, by means of a prophet, before he 
ventured into the battle against the Assyrians. And again, 
when he and Jehoram were in difficulties from want of water, he 
asked, " Is there not a prophet of the Lord here that we may 
inquire of the Lord by him ?" Even ungodly men like Zede- 
kiah (Jer. xxi. 2, and xxxvii. 17), and the elders of Israel 
(Ezek. xiv. 1 — 7), or heathens like King Benhadad (2 Kings, 
vhi. 7, 8, &c), believed in this power, and were glad, when 
occasion required, to avail themselves of it. And there is not 
only no intimation that they erred in making such inquiries, 
but Joshua and the men of Israel are represented as having 
done wrong because they made peace with the Gibeonites, and 
" asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord " (Josh. ix. 14). 
And when Ahaziah sent to Ekron to inquire of Baal-zebub, 
" the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up 
to meet the messengers of the King of Samaria, and say unto 
them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that ye go 
to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?" Indeed, some 
Christian commentators of great name, as well as some of the 
Babbis, think that in the Law God has made special provision 
for this sort of inquiry when He forbids them to be diviners or 



92 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



consulters with familiar spirits, and promises them a prophet 
like Moses to reveal His will (Deut. xviii. 10 — 19). It is certain 
that Isaiah insists on the duty of inquiring of the Lord when 
he says, " And when they shall say unto you, Inquire of the 
familiar spirits, and of wizards who peep and mutter : Should 
not a people inquire of their God ? For the living, should they 
inquire of the dead?" (viii. 19.)* 

In some of the cases just mentioned inquiry is made respecting 
the future, and it is evident that David and Jehoshaphat, as 
well as Zedekiak, believed that through the priest or the prophet 
they could receive from God, respecting contingencies, answers 
which the Divine prescience could alone supply ; that is, that 
through the Divine help the priest or the prophet could predict 
future events. This faith rested upon the doctrine of God as 
taught in the Law, and exemplified in the whole of their previous 
history. Before there were prophets God Himself predicted the 
future. The announcement of the flood to Noah and the limita- 
tion of the day of grace to 120 years f are predictions. Noah 
knew the future of the human race, and by the Divine instruction 
was enabled to provide against the coming calamity. The 
declaration, at a time when Abraham was childless, that his 
posterity should be afflicted in a strange land for 400 years, but 
that their enemies should be punished and they come forth with 
great wealth, was clearly a prediction. Jacob is represented 
as having on his death-bed predicted what should befal his 
posterity " in futurity of days " (DVOTT JWttto). Joseph's inter- 
pretation of Pharaoh's dreams was a prediction of the seven 
years of plenty and of famine, and came from. God as well as 
the dreams. "What God is about to do he showeth unto 
Pharaoh " (Gen. xl. 28). It is recorded of most of the prophets 
mentioned in the historic books that they uttered predictions. 
Deborah foretold the fate of Sisera. The man of God an- 



* Lowth, and after Mm, Knobel, 
translate the last clause, " Instead of 
the living [God] should they inquire 
of the dead [idols ?]," but contrary to 
the parallelism. The prophet is re- 
monstrating agamst the practice of 
inquiring of the spirits of departed men. 
SIX is the spirit of a dead man, and 
therefore DT1D must refer to some- 
thing similar. 



f The words " Yet his days shall be 
120 years " do not refer to a diminution 
of the long life of the antediluvians, 
nor to the subsequent measure of 
human life, but to the length of the 
day of grace giyen them to repent. 
Such is the interpretation of the Tar- 
gums, Luther, Calvin, and many of the 
best modern commentators. See De- 
litsch on Genesis, p. 237, 8. 



Essay III.] 



PEOPHECY. 



93 



nounced to Eli the judgments coming upon his family, and the 
death of his sons in one day. Samuel confirmed this prediction 
and declared its certain fulfilment, and it is remarked " that the 
Lord let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel, 
from Dan to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was accredited (or 
verified p>0) for a prophet to the Lord." Micaiah foretells the 
defeat of the allied armies of Judah and Israel, and rests his 
prophetic pretensions upon the fulfilment of what he had 
announced. "If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath 
not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, people, every one 
of you." Elijah predicted that there should be no rain but 
according to his word, the death of Jezebel, the extermination of 
Ahab's posterity. Elisha foretold the overthrow of the Moabites, 
the three defeats of the Syrians. All these things, as well as the 
birth of Josiah, and the continuance of Jehu's posterity on the 
throne of Israel to the fourth generation, are related as predic- 
tions, in the ordinary sense of the word, — as supernatural com- 
munications from the Lord, and the fulfilment specially noticed. 

It may indeed be said, and has been said, that these predictions 
and the narratives connected with them are mythical narrations, 
written after the events when the historic substrata had had 
time to be transmuted into the supernatural. But that, if true, 
would not alter the fact that the Hebrews believed in the power 
of the prophets to predict events by supernatural aid from on 
high ; that this belief is inseparably connected with their ideas of 
the Divine Being, and everywhere visible in the historical books 
from Genesis to Nehemiah ; in fact that the power of predicting 
future events is one of the essential features in the character of 
a prophet. And as it is incontrovertibly a part of the popular 
belief, so it is the doctrine of the prophets themselves, as re- 
corded in their writings. It is hardly possible to open a page of 
any book of the prophets on which there is not a prediction. 
" By far the greatest portion of the prophetic discourses consists 
in delineations of the future, or predictions referring partly to 
the Jehovah people, and therefore to the kingdoms of Israel and 
Judah, partly to foreign nations who came in contact with the 
Hebrews, .... partly to individuals of the former, seldom of the 
latter."* Amos lays it down as an axiom that the Lord reveals 



* Knobel's ' Prophetismus,' i. 293. 



94 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



to the prophets his purposes before they are realized. " Surely 
the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret (VTO) 
to his servants the prophets." (Amos iii. 7.) Upon which, 
Hitzig says : " The prophet predicts the coming evil, which is 
always an ordinance of Jehovah ; for Jehovah makes him ac- 
quainted beforehand with that which He has decreed." Isaiah 
makes the prediction of future events a distinguishing charac- 
teristic and prerogative of Deity, and therefore a proof that the 
God of Israel is the true and living God. " Eemember the former 
things of old : for I am God and there is none else ; I am God, 
and there is none like me. Declaring futurity (JTHJ7K) from 
former time, and from ancient times the things that are not yet 
done " (xlvi. 9, 10) ; upon which words Knobel thus comments : — 
" The better view consists in the knowledge that Jehovah, and 
none besides, is God, that He is God and nothing like Him. To 
this view they can easily come by remembering the former 
things, that is, the prophecies formerly given, which are now 
being fulfilled (xlii. 9). These prove Jehovah's foreknowledge, 
and thereby His Godhead." In like manner Isaiah makes the 
want of predictions amongst idolaters a proof that their gods are 
no gods. " Produce your cause, bring forth your strong reasons, 
saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show 
us what shall happen : Let them show the former things what 
they be, that we may consider them and know the latter end of 
them ; or declare for us things for to come. Show the things 
that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods " 
(xli. 21 — 23) ; where Gesenius says, " A new challenge to the idols 
as in verse 1, &c, again with a reference to Cyrus, but also 
with a reference to former predictions of the prophets, such as 
the heathen had none to show." Kaobel's words are still 
stronger: — "Let them bring forth their proofs, especially that 
one which rests upon correct prediction of the future ; for the 
foreknowledge of the future is the peculiar attribute of God, and 
proves Deity, on which account it was also the credential of the 
true prophet. Deut. xviii. 21. Jer. xxviii. 9. And, on the 
contrary, the idols never were able, nor are they now, to announce 
the future. They should declare the things to come hereafter, 
that is, what should afterward happen, and Jehovah will see and 
recognise that they are gods, namely, when their prediction is 
accomplished." In these places, and many more, it is taught 



Essay III.] 



PROPHECY. 



95 



that Jehovah gives predictions to His servants the prophets, and 
also that He fulfils them. " He confirmeth the word of His 
servants, and performeth the counsel of His messengers " (Isai, 
xliv. 26) ; that by so doing He proves not only that the prophets 
are true prophets, but that He Himself is the true God. We 
have in fact the same proof of the truth of Divine Revelation 
that has been urged in modern times from fulfilled prophecy, 
and which has the highest possible sanction in the words of our 
Lord, " And now I have told you before it come to pass, that 
when it is' come to pass ye might believe." (John xiv. 29 : comp. 
xiii. 9. and xvi. 4.) 

8. It is evident that the Hebrew people believed that their 
prophets could predict the future. The prophets themselves 
affirm that they have the power and utter predictions. Were 
they impostors, or did they deceive themselves ? That they 
were impostors, is not believed by those Rationalists who have 
given most attention to this subject, as Gesenius, Ewald, and 
Knobel, and is disproved by their doctrine and their life. 
Concerning God they teach that He is One, the Lord, Creator 
of the heavens and the earth, Everlasting, Almighty, Omniscient, 
Free, All wise, Holy, a righteous Judge, a merciful Saviour, the 
Governor of the world, forgiving iniquity and sin.* Their 
notion of the religion acceptable to Him is also equally free 
from fanaticism and formality. They denounce those who 
"draw near to God with their lips, but remove their heart far 
from Him." They teach that to reform the life is better than 
external demonstrations. "To what purpose is the multitude 
of your sacrifices? . . Wash you; make you clean; put away 
the evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil, 
learn to do well ; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed ; judge 
the fatherless; plead for the widow" (Isaiah i. 11 — 17). "I 
will have mercy, not sacrifice." They proclaim that honesty, 
mercy, and humility are the weightiest matters of the Law. 
" What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to 
love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Mic. vi. 8). To 
preach such doctrine was their business ; and boldly to reprove 



* See Isai. xl. 28, xliv. 6 ; Jer. x. 10, 
xxiii. 23, 24 ; Isai. xiv. 24, 27 ; Jer. 
xxxii. 19, xvii. 10 ; Hab. i. 13 ; Mai. 
ii. 10 ; Isai. Ixiv. 8 ; Jer. xi. 20 ; Joel 



ii. 13 ; Mic. vii. 18 ; Dan. ii. 28 ; Ezek. 
xxxi. 9 ; Amos iii. 6 ; Ezek. xviii. 4 ; 
Hos. xiii. 14, &c. &c. 



96 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



all who lived in opposition to it, whether kings, or priests, or 
people, was their practice, and this without fee or reward, for 
they received nothing for their prophesying, but often exposed 
themselves to persecution and death. They sought not wealth, 
or honour, or favour, or ease. They were temperate, self- 
denying, patient, valiant for the truth, leaning upon God as 
their stay, and looking to God alone for their reward. They 
were neither morose ascetics, nor unlettered fanatics. Married 
and living amongst the people, in cottages and in courts, they 
discharged the ordinary duties of citizens. They cultivated 
letters, and have left a literature unique in the history of the 
world ; if judged according to a human standard, unsurpassed 
in genius, sublimity, grandeur; but in purity and morality 
unequalled by any nation in any age. This prophetic order 
beginning, if reckoned from Samuel, nearly 400 years before 
the birth of Kome, and closing when the bloom of Grecian 
genius was only appearing, is, when compared with the state of 
the world around them, a phenomenon as wonderful as the 
power of prediction which they claimed. The best days of 
Greece and Rome can furnish no heroes, patriots, or moral 
teachers to compare with this long and wonderful succession of 
holy, disinterested, bold reprovers of vice and preachers of 
virtue, unambitious examples of genuine patriotism, living for 
the glory of God, and the good of man ; whose writings are so 
imbued with imperishable and universal truth, that for nearly 
twenty-four centuries after the death of the last of the goodly 
fellowship, they have continued and still continue to touch the 
hearts, and influence the faith, the thoughts and lives of the 
wisest, greatest, and most excellent of the human race. That 
such men could be deceivers, or that imposture could have 
exercised a power so enduring, is impossible. That they could 
have been self-deceiving enthusiasts is equally incredible. 
Neither their doctrine, nor their lives, nor their writings savour 
of enthusiasm, nor can they be accounted for as mere ebullitions 
of genius. Why did not the poetic inspiration and colossal 
intellect of Greece produce similar results? Why did not 
Euripides prophesy? Why did Plato never rise to moral 
purity? * " It is because of the theocracy," say modern diviners. 

* Of all the great writers of anti- I to the corruption of fallen human na- 
quity flato is the most striking witness | ture, and the propensity of the grandest 



Essay III.] 



PEOPHECY. 



97 



Moses founded a theocracy, and prophetism was the necessary 
result. But this is only to remove the difficulty one step 
farther back. Why did not the Spartan, or Athenian, or 
Locrian lawgivers, or the royal disciple of Egeria found a 
theocracy like that of Moses ? Why did not their legislations 
bring forth prophets? In a certain sense prophecy did arise 
out of the original relation established between God and Israel. 
The same Divine Being, who commanded the theocracy, gave 
also the prophets, inspired them with their doctrines, revealed 
to them the future, and enabled them to utter predictions, far 
beyond the powers of human foreboding, sagacity or conjecture, 
which by then- fulfilment, of old and in the present times, 
demonstrate that they were not self-deceiving enthusiasts, but 
spake as they were moved by Him who knows the end from 
the beginning. 

9. It has indeed been said by foreign writers, and lately 
repeated in this country, that the predictions arose out of the cir- 
cumstances of the days in which the prophets lived, and do not 
extend beyond the horizon of their times. The interpreter " can- 
not quote Nahum denouncing ruin against Nineveh, or Jere- 
miah against Tyre, without remembering that already the 
Babylonian power threw its shadow across Asia, and Nebuchad- 
nezzar was mustering his armies."* Some foreign critics, 
though in the same spirit, take a different view of the occasion 
of Nahum's prophecy, ascribing it to an attempt by the Medes 
and their eastern allies. " This is the remarkable expedition," 
says Ewald, speaking of the Medes and their oriental con- 
federates under Phraortes, " which Nahum saw with his own 
eyes, when, predicting the approaching end of Nineveh, he wrote 
his still extant oracle ; he lived in Alqush, somewhat farther 
east of the Tigris, and was therefore able, in that place, to see 
the whole host as it advanced against Nineveh."f The latter 
supposition, that Nahum lived near Nineveh, is for good reasons 
rejected by Knobel, who affirms that he lived at Elkosh in 



intellect, when left to itself, to exten- 
uate the foulest and most odious vice. 
In nothing does the superiority of He- 
brew ethics shine out more brightly. 
See Wuttke, 'Handbuch der Christli- 
chen Sittenlehre,' pp. 55-67. At the 
same time the mercy inculcated in the 



prophets may be favourably contrasted 
with the Greek doctrine concerning 
slaves, incurables, cripples, exposure of 
children, abortion, suicide, &c. 

* ' Essays and Eeviews,' p. 68. 

f ' Geschichte Israel's,' iii. 389. See 
also Knobel's ' Prophetismus,' ii. 212. 



H 



98 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



Galilee, and, therefore, did not see the Median power advancing 
against the Assyrian capital. With regard to the relative 
strength of the Babylonian and Median powers in comparison 
with that of the Assyrian empire at that time, there was nothing 
to lead the prophet to anticipate that either the one or the other 
was able to take Nineveh, or overthrow the Assyrian monarchy, 
but the contrary. According to Knobel, who, in the eyes of 
nationalists, is an unexceptionable witness, Nahum wrote this 
prophecy between the years 713 and 711 B.C. Nineveh was not 
overthrown until about 612.* Just about the time when Nahuni 
wrote, or, according to others, three or four years later,f the 
Medes under De'ioces revolted from the Assyrians, and set up an 
independent monarchy. Their power at that time could not 
have been very formidable, for fifty years later, when the Median 
empire had been consolidated by the long and wise government 
of Deioces, it was still unable to cope with the Assyrians, by 
whom their army was utterly defeated, their king slain, and 
their capital taken. The effort of Phraortes was equally unsuc- 
cessful, and therefore Hitzig says, " The attack of Phraortes is 
not a sufficient ground [for the confident tone of the prophecy]. 
The Assyrians destroyed him and his whole host. The capital, 
which Ewald supposes to have been vigorously besieged, does 
not appear to have been approached by any danger of the kind. "J 
The Babylonians were just as little a match for the Assyrians, 
for, some fifty years before, Esarhaddon had seized Babylon, 
and reunited it to the Assyrian monarchy. § When, then, Nahum 
wrote, the shadow of the Babylonian or Median power was not 
such as to cause much alarm for the existence of Nineveh. 
Notwithstanding the loss of an army of 185,000 men, the Assy- 
rian power was still the greatest in the world ; and whilst it was 
still the greatest, whilst the kingdom of Babylon was still so 
inferior as to be unable to undertake anything against it by 
itself, and was therefore glad to seek the alliance of Hezekiah, 
one hundred years before the event, Nahum predicted the siege 



* According to Prideaux ; but accord- 
ing to Usher, 626. Weber ('Weltge- 
schichte,' i. 47) places the total destruc- 
tion of Nineveh in 606. 

f According to Knobel, the Medes 
revolted in the years immediately pre- 
ceding 710, and made Deioces king, 
and he reigned from 710 on. Comp. 



M. von Niebuhr, ' Geschichte Assur's 
und Babel's,' pp. 177, 178. 

% Hitzig's ' Minor Prophets,' p. 225. 
Comp. von Niebuhr, pp. 188, 189. 

§ According to Niebuhr, Sennache- 
rib seized Babylon, and made Esar- 
haddon viceroy, p. 177, 8. 



Essay III.] 



PEOPHECY. 



99 



and utter destruction of Nineveh. " And it shall come to pass, 
that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, 
Nineveh is laid waste . . . The gates of thy land shall be set 
wide open unto thine enemies ; the fire shall devour thy bars. 
Draw the waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds ; go into 
clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln. There 
shall the fire devour thee : the sword shall cut thee off, it shall 
eat thee up like the cankerworm !" * Can any of those men who 
now assert that this prophecy was a mere conjecture, tell us 
what will be the fate of Paris or London one hundred years 
hence ? They deny the miracle of supernatural foreknowledge, 
and believe what is more incredible far ; that unassisted human 
knowledge can lift the veil from futurity, and presage the des- 
tinies of empires. Nahum is, however, not the only prophet 
who uttered predictions concerning the Assyrians. " Assur had 
not yet passed the Euphrates as a conqueror, and the victorious 
Jeroboam still reigned in the kingdom of Israel, when the pro- 
phetic voice of Hosea and Amos already threatened their 
countrymen with the scourge of Assyria. Amos vi. 14, vii. 17 ; 
Hos. x. 7, 8, xiv. 1. Some years before the fall of Samaria, 
Micah uttered these words : — ' What is the guilt of Jacob, is it 
not Samaria ? And what are the idol-high places of Judah, are 
they not Jerusalem ? Therefore I will make Samaria as an 
heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard : and I will 
pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover 
the foundations thereof.' But for three years the Assyrian was 
obliged to lie before the well-fortified city before it fell. Con- 
cerning Judah also Micah uttered the oracle : — 'Evil came down 
from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem,' f and thereupon begins 
the announcement of the desolation of particular country towns 
of J udea. But at that time Shalmaneser passed by the king- 
dom of Judah in peace, and Hezekiah continued to pay his 
tribute. It was not until the throne had got a new occupant in 
Sennacherib that he ceased to do so, and thus brought the Assy- 
rian host before the gates of Jerusalem, and caused the fulfil- 
ment of the prophecy. But long before this, when the 



* Nahum iii. 7, 14, 15. 

f He might have added " thou 
inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot 
-to the swift beast ; she is the beginning 



of the sin to the daughter of Zion : for 
the transgressions of Israel -were found 
in thee." 

H 2 



100 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



unbelieving Ahaz called upon Tiglath Pileser for help against 
Syria and Israel, Isaiah, with prophetic eye, looking far beyond 
the then present, announced to him that through the King of 
Assyria danger should come upon him, and his father's house, 
and his people, such as had not been since the division of the 
kingdoms. (Isai. vii. 17, 18.) Ahaz himself sank into a state of 
disgraceful Assyrian vassalage, and, perhaps, even experienced 
the horrors of war in his own land. (2 Ghron. xxviii. 20.) But 
in the days of Hezekiah the word of the prophet was fulfilled in 
full measure by Sennacherib." * 

But the accuracy of Micah's language and of Isaiah's pro- 
phetic foreknowledge are worthy of attention. Micah foretels 
utter destruction to Samaria ; to Judah only chastisement, 
which should reach to the gate of Jerusalem, but no farther. 
" For it is incurable, every one of her blows — it (the blow) 
is come to Judah. He hath reached touched, or smitten) 
as far as the gate of my people, to Jerusalem ...... For 

the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good; but evil 
came down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem. 
thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift 
beast." From the history it appears that the word of Micah 
was exactly fulfilled. " In the fourteenth year of King Heze- 
kiah, Sennacherib King of Assyria came up against all the 
defenced cities and took them [Lachish among the number]. 
And the King of Assyria sent Kabshakeh from Lachish to Jeru- 
salem with a great army." (Isaiah xxxvi. 1, &c.) The land of 
Judah was overrun ; the evil reached even to the gate of Jeru- 
salem, for the city was invested ; but, in conformity with 
Micah's words, it never entered the city — the Assyrian 
power was broken, and the king returned by the way he 
came, as Isaiah had foretold. There is no doubt about the 
predictions, or the fact that they were uttered before the 
event, nor yet about the fulfilment. In the time of Ahaz, 
Isaiah, who had also foretold the chastisement to be inflicted on 
Judah by the Assyrians, expressly announced a miraculous 
destruction of the Assyrian host. " Therefore shall the Lord, 
the Lord of Hosts, send among his fat ones leanness ; and under 
his glory He shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire. 



* Tholuck, ' Die Prophetcn und ikre Weissagungen,' p. 83, 84. 



Essay III.] 



PROPHECY. 



101 



And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for 
a flame : and it shall burn and devour his briers in one day ; 
and shall consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field 
both soul and body, and they shall be like the pining away of a 
sick man," &c. (Isai. x. 16-19.) And, again, xxx. 27-32, Isaiah 
also predicts that the Assyrian shall be broken in his land at 
least thirty years before the event. That the Assyrian power 
should be broken was then improbable ; that it should be broken 
on the mountains of Judah more improbable still, beyond human 
conjecture, and yet it was accomplished. The prediction is 
found Isai. xiv. 24-27. " The Lord of Hosts hath sworn, saying, 
Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass ; and as I 
have purposed so shall it stand : that I will break the Assyrian 
in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot : then 
shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from 
off their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposed upon 
the whole earth ; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon 
all nations, for the Lord of Hosts hath purposed, and who shall 
disannul it ? And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn 
it back ?" Modern, even sceptical, criticism assigns this fragment 
to Isaiah, and considers it as a part of the prophecy beginning 
at x. 5, and going on to the end of chapter xii. The wording is 
remarkable. It implies miracle, and by miracle the Assyrian 
host was destroyed : the fulfilment is not only narrated in the 
history, but recorded in several Psalms, and von Niebuhr shows 
how, notwithstanding the continuance of Sennacherib's empire, 
and its prosperity under Esarhaddon, the Assyrian power was 
then really " broken." 

With regard to Assyria's successor, Babylon, there are pre- 
dictions equally sure. That one hundred and fifty years 
before the event, the Babylonian captivity was foretold in 
the most unequivocal and remarkable language by Isaiah, is 
as certain as any fact in history. In the xxxixth chapter of 
that prophet we read that on Hezekiah's recovery Merodach 
Baladan, King of Babylon, sent to congratulate him. Hezekiah 
vaingloriously exhibited to him all his wealth. Isaiah was soon 
at hand to rebuke his vanity, and announce the Lord's purpose 
concerning Hezekiah's posterity. " Hear the word of the Lord 
of Hosts : Behold the days come, that all that is in thine house, 
and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, 



102 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay HI. 



shall be carried to Babylon : nothing shall be left, saith the 
Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou 
shalt beget, shall they take away : and they shall be eunuchs in 
the palace of the King of Babylon." It is certain that Nabo- 
nassar had shaken off the Assyrian yoke, and made Babylon an 
independent kingdom, and that some twelve years after his 
death reigned Merodach Baladan.* The genuineness of the 
chapter in Isaiah has never been doubted. The circumstances of 
Babylon were not then such as to raise any conjecture respect- 
ing its future greatness. It was independent, but not superior to 
Assyria ; on the contrary, as we have already said, Babylon was 
soon after reduced again to Assyrian obedience. 

Micah also predicted the captivity and the deliverance from 
Babylon. Ch. ii. 10, he says, " Arise ye and depart : for this is not 
your rest : Because it is polluted it shall destroy you even with 
a sore destruction ;" iii. 12, he announces that Jerusalem shall 
be ploughed as a field, J erusalem become heaps, and the temple 
and its place be desolate ; iv. 10, he says, " Thou shalt go forth 
out of the city, thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go 
even to Babylon : there shalt thou be delivered : there the Lord 
shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies." This pre- 
diction is the more remarkable, because, as we have seen, he 
predicts the overrunning of the land of Judah by the Assyrians, 
declares that the evil should only come to the gate of Jerusalem ; 
and v. 5, 6, foretels the deliverance in the land of Israel. " This 
one Ht [the Messiah, the Son of God] shall be the peace, when 
the Assyrian shall come into our land," and announces the 
wasting of the land of Assyria.! He could not, therefore, have 
expected that Assyria was to bring them to Babylon ; and still 
less that at Babylon they should be delivered. Micah pro- 
phesied before the destruction of Samaria, i.e. before 724, that is, 
about a hundred and forty years before the destruction by Ne- 
buchadnezzar, and consequently about two hundred before the 
deliverance from Babylon. J 

10. The mention of Babylon reminds us of another remarkable 
and indubitable prediction as remarkably fulfilled, and the ful- 



* Niebuhr, pp. 46, 47, and 169. 

f Mic. i. 9, ii. 4, 5, 10, vii. 13. 

% Tholuck remarks well, that as the 
Babylonish captivity is foretold both 
by Isaiah and Micah, and yet their 



writings admitted to be genuine, the 
main objection against the genuineness 
of Isai. xiii. xiv. and xl.-lxvi. is re- 
moved. 



Essay III.] 



PEOPHECY. 



108 



filment of which shows the groundlessness of recent insinua- 
tions. One of these was noticed above. " He cannot quote 

Jeremiah [denouncing ruin against Tyre] without 

remembering that already the Babylonian power threw its 
shade across Asia, and Nebuchadnezzar was mustering his 
armies." But surely the writer of these words could not have 
forgotten that the ruin of Tyre by the Chaldeans had been pre- 
dicted long before the days of Jeremiah. In the twenty -third 
chapter of Isaiah is found the burden of Tyre. The siege, 
the interruption of her commerce, the flight of her citizens, and 
the lamentations of her mariners and her colonies, are all 
graphically foretold here — and even the authors of the ruin are 
named. In the thirteenth verse, A.V., we read, " Behold the 
land of the Chaldeans. This people was not till the Assyrian 
founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness : they set up 
the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof ; and he 
brought it to ruin." There are various translations of this verse,* 
but that the Chaldeans are predicted as the destroyers of Tyre 
is admitted by some of the highest modern authorities. Knobel 
says, " Behold, the land of the Chaldeans. With the word 
'Behold' the author introduces something new to which he 
directs special attention. That something is the destroyers of 
Tyre whom he is about to name." Gesenius has " The sense 
of verse 13 is — Behold, this people of the Chaldees, a little 
while ago inhabitants of the deserts, to whom the Assyrians first 
assigned settled habitations and made it a people : this hitherto 
insignificant people, scarcely deserving mention, shall be the 
instrument of the destruction of the ancient world-wide famous 
city of Tyre." If this be the sense, as is generally agreed, then 
we have a prediction far surpassing the powers of human fore- 
sight, and not suggested by existing circumstances. The deniers 
of prediction feel this, and therefore use the most violent means 
to get rid of it, not scrupling to alter the text and change the 
meaning of the Hebrew words. Even the great Ewald is not 
above this violence. Without a shadow of critical support he 
would for " Chaldeans" substitute " Canaanites," and interpret 



* Hitzig has They erect their castles, 

Behold, the land of the Chaldeans, Destroy her palaces, 

The people there, that was no people. Make her a heap of ruin. 
Assur created it for the inhabitants of 

the deserts. 



104 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



" Behold, the land of the Canaanites (the Phoenicians), this 
people is no more, Assur has made it a desolation ; they (the 
Phoenicians) erected their country villas, they built their palaces, 
he made it a ruin." I. Olshausen is guilty of still greater 
violence : he would strike out of the verse a number of words at 
the beginning, including, of course, " Chaldeans." Meier pro- 
poses to substitute " Kittiim " for " Chaldeans," and to strike out 
the latter part of the verse: all which criticism Knobel un- 
ceremoniously calls " bodenlose Willkiihr." Others would 
get rid of the whole as ungenuine, not written by Isaiah, 
but by some one in the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.* 
Knobel and Gesenius get rid of the difficulty by finding the 
event alluded to in Shalmaneser's attempt on Tyre, when he 
subdued the whole of continental Phoenicia, but was unable to 
take New Tyre on the island, and established a blockade for five 
years. The Chaldeans, they say, served, and were some of the 
best troops, in the Assyrian army. But this is also to do violence 
to the text. The prophet does not say that the Assyrians should 
destroy the city, but explicitly and emphatically points out the 
Chaldeans as the miners of Tyre. " Behold, the land of the 
Chaldeans. This is the people — -it was not [a people], Ashur 
founded it [the land] for the dwellers in steppes. They erected 
their watch-towers ; they roused up" her palaces ; they made 
her a ruin." Knobel and Gresenius, in the passages quoted from 
their commentaries, plainly admit this. But the only siege of 
Tyre by the Chaldeans was the thirteen years' siege by Nebu- 
chadnezzar, and every unprejudiced mind must admit that it 
alone answers to the prophet's words, and therefore receive the 
prophecy as a prediction. Sooner than do this, Knobel, who 
believes and proves the prophecy to be genuine, says we must 
reject it as ungenuine, and ascribe it to Jeremiah. " To assert 
the genuineness of this portion, and yet to refer it to the siege 
of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar the King of the Chaldeans, an 
event which happened a hundred years later, Ezek. xxvi.-xxviii. 
(as Jerome, Yitringa, I. D. Michaelis, Drechsler, Hengstenberg), 
is impossible, because in the time of Isaiah there could not be a 
foreboding, much less a certain and definite announcement of 
anything of the kind." Such is the honesty and trustworthiness 



* Gresenius, ' Commentary,' p. 716. 



Essay III.] 



PROPHECY. 



105 



of " the higher criticism." Better to reject a prophetic passage, 
which it proves to be genuine, than admit a prediction. Here 
is a plain proof that the criticism proceeds from previous rejec- 
tion of prediction, not that the unbelief proceeds from the 
criticism. The critical De Wette says the same in his Introduc- 
tion to the 0. T. " The prophecy concerning Tyre, c. xxiii., 
has been , denied to be Isaiah's on account of the mention of the 
Chaldeans, and because it has been supposed that its fulfilment 
must be found in history ; also because of the supposed Chal- 
daising language (verses 3, 11). But these objections can be 
some of them entirely confuted, and others shown to be weak."* 
The preceding statement is a remarkable exhibition of the un- 
trustworthiness of Rationalist criticism on account of the pre- 
vious dogmatic prejudices of the authors against inspiration and 
prediction. It is also a specimen, one out of thousands, of how 
much reliance is to be placed on Professor Jowett's statement, 
" that the diversity amongst German writers on prophecy is far 
less than among English ones. That is a new phenomenon 
which has to be acknowledged." t Any one who would take the 
trouble could show that the contrary is the fact ; that there is 
such a love of novelty, and such unrestrained efforts after 
originality, that the diversities of opinion on any one subject, 
easy or difficult, are much greater than in England. 

But, to return ; Professor Jowett says that this is one of the 
passages which have not been fulfilled. " For a like reason the 
failure of a prophecy is never admitted, in spite of Scripture 
and of history (Jer. xxxvi. 30 ; Isai. xxiii. ; Amos vii. 10-17). "J 
What he considers unfulfilled in this prediction he does not say ; 
but there are two points to which he probably alludes. The 
first is, that there is no historic account of Tyre having been 
taken by assault by Nebuchadnezzar. But no such event is 
predicted in this chapter. The prophet foretels a siege by the 
Chaldeans, great calamities, Tyre reduced to a ruin — this is all 
matter of history. Tyre was besieged for thirteen years. § In 
so long a siege the city must have suffered severely. Nebuchad- 
nezzar overran all Syria and Phoenicia : || he must, therefore, 



* This lifts been done by both Ge- X ' Essays,' p. 343. 
senius and Knobel in their comraen- § Josephus, Antiq. lib. x., c. 11. 

taries. Contra Ap. i. 21. 

t ' Essays and Keviews,' p. 340. || Contra Apion. lib. i. e. 20. 



106 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay HE. 



have taken Old Tyre on the continent ; and modern critics now 
admit that if New Tyre on the island was not taken by assault, 
it submitted to the Chaldeans by capitulation, and that the 
Tyrian royal family was carried to Babylon. So Gesenius says, 
"The siege probably ended with a peaceable agreement and 
alliance, as we see that subsequently the Tyrians sent to 
Babylon to fetch Merbal, one of their later kings (Joseph, contra 
Apion. i. § 21)." And Tholuck (p. 133), "That which, after the 
searching investigations of Hengstenberg and Havernik, should 
never have been questioned, has now, since the farther 
researches in Movers (ii. 1, p. 461), found pretty general recep- 
tion (also in Duncker, i. 172 ; Mebuhr, p. 216) ; that certainly, 
if not a conquest, yet a capitulation of the Tyrians must have 
taken place, in consequence of which they again became vassals 
of the Chaldeans, and were obliged to submit to the removal of 
the royal family to Babylon. The plainest proof of this is seen 
in the fact, that about a year later they were attacked as Chal- 
dean vassals and subdued by Hophra, who had been formerly 
their ally. That this conquest could have been effected by the 
Egyptian king by a surprise, shows in what a low state their 
fortifications and their power must have been." * It is therefore 
historically certain that Tyre was besieged, and reduced to a 
state of ruin by the Chaldeans, just as Isaiah had foretold about 
a hundred and thirty years before, when the Chaldeans were as 
yet mere mercenary troops in the armies . of Assyria. It is 
equally certain that after the fall of Babylon, Tyre became inde- 
pendent, rich, and prosperous again, as the prophet foretold. " It 
shall come to pass in that clay, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy 
years, according to the days of one king : after the end of 
seventy years shall Tyre sing as a harlot." The discord amongst 
critics about the meaning of the seventy years and the days of 
one king is just as great as that already noticed. Two opinions 
meet most favour : one, that of the Rationalists, that seventy is 
a round number, and that seventy years mean a long time ; the 
other, that king here means dynasty or kingdom of the Chaldeans, 
as Dan. vii. 17, viii. 20, winch is the view of Aben Ezra, Vi- 
tringa, Lowth, Doclerlein, Bosenmiiller, &c. If either be true, 



* That is, to what a state of ruin 
they had been reduced by the previous 
thirteen years' siege. — See also von 



Niebuhr's ' Geschichte Assur's und Ba- 
bel's,' p. 216. 



Essay III.] 



PROPHECY. 



107 



the objector cannot fairly say that the prediction has not been 
fulfilled. 

With regard to the concluding verse, in which the prophet 
foretels that after Tyre's recovery from Babylonian vassalage, 
" Her merchandize and her hire should be holiness to the Lord," 
the most that can be objected is, that we have no record of its 
fulfilment. But from this it does not follow that this part of 
the prediction was not accomplished. The fulfilment could only 
have taken place after the restoration from Babylon, and before 
the destruction by Alexander. The records of events in Scrip- 
ture from the return of Zerubbabel to the close of the Canon are 
too brief to afford us any light as to the relations between Tyre 
and Jerusalem. In the days of Solomon we know that they 
were friendly, Hiram contributed to the building of the temple, 
and the friendship must have continued unusually intimate, as 
Amos denounces punishment upon Tyre for " not having remem- 
bered the brotherly covenant." (Amos i. 9.) There is, there- 
fore, nothing improbable in the supposition that, after Tyre's 
recovery from almost ruin, friendly relations were re-established, 
and rich offerings made in the temple at Jerusalem. The mar- 
vellous fulfilment of the former portion respecting the Chaldeans 
is a guarantee for the Divine origin and accomplishment of the 
latter. Hitherto objectors have only asserted, not attempted to 
prove, the non-fulfilment. 

There are other fulfilled predictions to which the reader's 
attention might satisfactorily have been turned, but the charge 
of non-fulfilment made in ' Essays and Keviews ' constrains us 
to consider a passage in Jeremiah, and another in Amos there 
referred to, in support of the allegation. The former, Jer. xxxvi. 
10, is thus given in the Authorized Version : — " Therefore thus 
saith the Lord of Jehoiakim, King of Juclah, he shall have none 
to sit [literally, ' none sitting'*] upon the throne of David; 
and his body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the 
night to the frost/'f To this Hitzig in his commentary objects, 
that Jehoiakim had a son, Jehoiachin, who did sit upon his 



* The present participle l^V is used 
to denote continuance. See Ewald, 
Gramm. § 350. 

The verb signifies to abide, con- 
tinue, endure, as well as to sit. Gen. 



xxiv. 55 ; Ps. ix. 8 ; Jer. xxs. 18. 

f Compare xxii. 19: "He shall he 
buried -with the burial of an ass, drawn 
and cast forth beyond the gates of Je- 
rusalem." 



108 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



throne, and that in 2 Kings xxiv. 6 (Heb. 5), we read, " So Je- 
hoiakini slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son reigned hi 
his stead." If Jeremiah had, after uttering the prophecy, com- 
mitted it to writing, and then died before Jehoiakim, this objec- 
tion might have some weight ; but when it is remembered that 
Jeremiah lived many years after the death of Jehoiakim, and, if 
his words had been falsified by events, might have altered them, 
and yet did not, but left them as originally uttered, the objection 
ceases to have any force at all. The prophet must have been 
satisfied after the event, that his words expressed what had hap- 
pened. Jehoiakim had in fact no son " sitting," or continuing 
on the throne of David, for, three months after Jehoiachin's 
elevation, he was deposed and carried away. The words, " He 
slept with his fathers," signify simply that he died, affirming 
nothing about his burial. Here Ewald is much more thought- 
ful and more candid than the English Essayist or his German 
forerunner. In the ' Geschichte des Volkes Israel,' in. p. 430, 
Ewald gives an account of the death of Jehoiakim and of the 
treatment of his corpse in agreement with Jeremiah's words, 
and, in a note, adds, " The particular circumstances of the death 
of Jehoiakim are very obscure. The formula, 1 He slept with his 
fathers,' 2 Kings xxiv. 5, means nothing more than his death ; that 
he was taken prisoner is mentioned, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6 ; but 
what actually occurred may be inferred with tolerable proba- 
bility from the words selected by Jeremiah xxiL 18, &c, and 
xxxvi. 30. Eor, though the prophet had certainly predicted the 
king's unhappy end long before, he wrote down the words after 
the event." Ewald, therefore, saw the impossibility of these 
words containing an unfulfilled prediction. The English objector 
might have saved his criticism from appearing as the dictate of 
passion rather than the conclusion of judgment, had he taken 
time to consider the prophet's words impartially. 

Another example of this unhappy hastiness in taking up ob- 
jections is found in the reference to Amos vii. 10-17. In our 
English Bible the passage reads thus : — " Then Amaziah the 
priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam King of Israel, saying, Amos 
hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel : 
the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos saith, 
Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led 
away captive out of their own land. And Amaziah said unto 



Essay III.] 



PKOPHECY. 



109 



Amos, thou seer, go flee thee away into the land of Judah, and 
there eat bread, and prophesy there : But prophesy not again 
any more at Bethel ; for it is the king's chapel and the king's 
court." Amos asserts his Divine call, and utters this prediction 
against Amaziah : — " Therefore, thus saith the Lord ; thy wife 
shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters 
shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line ; 
and thou shalt die in a polluted land ; and Israel shall surely 
go into captivity forth of his land." As the Essayist does not 
specify the particulars which he supposes unfulfilled, we can 
only state the objection according to Hitzig. First, then, he 
may suppose that the prediction is not fulfilled because Jero- 
boam II. did not die by the sword ; but if the objector will look 
at verse 9, he will see that Amos did not predict anything of 
the kind — the prophet's threat is not against Jeroboam, but his 
house. " I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the 
sword," which threat was fulfilled when Shallum conspired 
against Jeroboam's son and successor, and slew him and reigned 
in his stead. (2 Kings xv. 10.) The words, " Jeroboam shall die by 
the sword," were a malicious addition of Amaziah's to induce 
Jeroboam to drive Amos from Bethel. Hitzig's attempt to 
prove that " house of J eroboam " included Jeroboam himself 
by referring to Isai. vii. 13, where " house of David " includes 
Ahaz and his family, is a miserable failure. To make the cases 
parallel, Isaiah must have said, "Hear ye now, house of 
Ahaz." 

The next portion of the assaulted prediction foretels that 
Israel should go into captivity. Taking Knobei's dates, Amos 
uttered his prophecies between 790-784 b. c, i. e. before the 
death of Jeroboam. The final carrying away of Israel by Shal- 
maneser occurred about sixty years after : so that here is an un- 
doubted prediction undoubtedly fulfilled. 

There remains only the denunciation against Amaziah, his 
wife and children, the fulfilment of which is not recorded. But 
surely this is not surprising, when the excessive brevity of the 
accounts of the kings and revolutions that followed, is taken into 
consideration. There is nothing impossible or improbable in the 
fate predicted. Within thirty years from the date of the prophecy, 
the Assyrians began their incursions into the land of Israel. 
Although, then, the fulfilment of this particular is not related, it 



110 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



is not improbable. The fulfilment of the other two particulars 
is a guarantee that this also was accomplished. This objection, 
however, like others of the kind, has this value : it shows that 
the objector believes that the Hebrew prophets did lay claim to 
the power of predicting future events. 

11. Here our attention has been directed to one of many 
wondrous predictions concerning the destinies of Israel, which 
have excited the astonishment of readers in all ages. Moses fore- 
told the dispersion of the disobedient people, and their preserva- 
tion in the midst of the nations. The theme has been taken up 
by all the later prophets. The fulfilment is before our eyes. Israel 
has been scattered to the four winds, but is still preserved. Of the 
nations by whom and amongst whom they were first dispersed 
the Lord has made a full end. He has chastened Israel in mea- 
sure, but has not permitted them to disappear.* The Assyrians, the 
Babylonians, the Komans have utterly perished. The Ten Tribes 
are "wanderers among the nations." The people of the Jews, 
rich, powerful, intelligent, survive all the revolutions of Empires, 
ancient, medieval, modern, and await the consummation of the 
Lord's oracles. t But as this is matter of notoriety, is not disputed 
or explained by Kationalists or Essayists, it is enough to refer to 
this proof of revelation, as wonderful as the answer to Elijah's 
prayer (1 "Kings, xviii.). 

12. But that which gives to Hebrew prophecy its peculiar 
charm, and its paramount importance, is that it contains predic- 
tions respecting Eedemption and the Bedeemer. That there are 
Messianic prophecies has been the belief of Jews and Christians for 
more than two thousand years, and is fully admitted by the New 
School of Theology. But, much beyond this, the agreement 
between the old and new interpreters does not extend. For some 
of the prophecies applied in the New Testament to the Messiah, 
the modern school has new interpretations. Of others, and those 
most important, it denies the genuineness ; and one of the vital 
questions now brought before the English mind is, whether we 
are to follow the New Testament, or the new G-erman critics. 
The innovators in England do not pretend to offer anything ori- 
ginal of their own. They repeat in English what they have de- 



* Jer. xxx. 11, xxxi. 35-37 ; Isai. vi. I t See Butler's 'Analogy,' Part ii. 
11-13 : Amos ix. 9. | c. 7. 



Essay III.] 



PKOPHECY. 



Ill 



rived from one class of German writers. And, as German 
learning stands deservedly in high repute, there is a danger of 
the unwary receiving without question, what appears to come on 
authority so respectable. Hence the present necessity of such 
frequent references to the sources from which they draw, and 
also of recalling attention to the real question at issue, namely, 
whether the New Testament or German critics are to be our 
guides in interpreting prophecy. Now, placing for a moment the 
New Testament writers on the lowest level, regarding them 
merely as included amongst the ancient J ews, their opinion must 
be of some value. Theirs were the prophetic books. For their 
fathers and for themselves they were written. They were ori- 
entals. They inherited the traditional interpretation of their 
people. Their interpretation has been accepted by the intel- 
ligent of other nations. The Christian Church, composed of a 
great variety of races, abounding in minds of all possible types, 
in different stages of culture, approved and adhered to the old 
Jewish interpretation for many centuries. True, that only two 
or three of the Fathers understood Hebrew, and that the early 
Church was dependent upon the Greek and Syriac, and the me- 
dieval Church on the Vulgate, versions. But, as was said above, 
and at the present time ought to be kept in remembrance, how- 
ever many of the beauties and peculiarities of the writer may be 
lost in a version, the grand substance, the purpose and intent of 
the whole, which is, after all, the real meaning of any book that 
has a meaning, may be grasped in any tolerable translation by 
any intelligent reader. And that which suggests itself to the 
common sense of mankind, as the meaning, whether derived from 
version or original, is undoubtedly the true meaning. And so it is 
with prophecy. To readers of ancient or modern versions, or of 
the original, the general scope and intent has ever appeared the 
same. And, therefore, at the revival of letters, and at the Ke- 
formation, when the original language of the prophets came to be 
studied, the general sense, handed down from the New Testa- 
ment writers by the Fathers and medieval divines, still com- 
mended itself to students as acute in intellect, and to scholars as 
familiar with the Hebrew language, as any who have lived in the 
last hundred years. Indeed it may be doubted whether Hebrew 
has been so nearly a mother-tongue with any recent critics, as it 
was with the Buxtorfs, Wagenseil, Edzard, and others of old ; 



112 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



and whether any modern commentators have been naturally more 
competent to grasp the general sense than the Reformers, and 
those who followed them. And yet, from the Keformation down 
to the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the old interpreta- 
tion prevailed. Komanists and Protestants were still of one 
mind as to the general outline of prophetic truth. Wonderful 
if ancient Jews, Fathers and Medievalists, Protestants and 
Romanists, were all mistaken, and the true sense hidden until 
about fifty years ago. 

13. If the New School were all of one mind ; if all modern 
critics were unanimous in their judgments, and uniform in their 
interpretations, and their conclusions had been arrived at by un- 
biassed investigation, such unanimity of opinion, and conclusions 
so deduced, would naturally have great weight. But the variety 
and diversity of opinion in the German Rationalist School is un- 
bounded. They agree only in that negative view, which neces- 
sarily arises from the common origin and the common principles 
of their theology. The origin of their theology is undoubtedly 
Deistic infidelity ;* its fundamental principles, that there is no 
supernatural revelation of Deity, and therefore no Divine predic- 
tion^ consequently that there can be no real predictions concern- 
ing J esus of Nazareth, or anybody else. J Criticism derived from 
such a source, and guided by such principles, must be eminently 
untrustworthy. The conclusions forerun the investigation. If 
there can be no prediction at all, then there can be none relating 
to our Lord ; and therefore from their general principle, before any 
investigation is made, it follows that neither the xxiind Psalm, 
nor Isai. vii. 14, nor any other Psalm or prophecy, can be inter- 
preted of the Saviour, and therefore investigation can only be 
made in order to show that the foregone conclusion is true. The 
investigators may be learned, profound, acute, diligent, honest, 
but their principles hinder them from acknowledging that any 



* See ' Letters on Kationalism,' pas- 
sim. 

t At vero quibus miraculorum aucto- 
ritas implicita est scrupulis, iisdem vel 
gravioribus etiam decreta de vaticiniis 
proposita premuntur. Primum enim 
qusevis predictio divinitus patefacta, 
qua fatum inevitabile hominis aut po- 
puli cujusdam, quod ex re quadam ab 
ipsis perpetranda pendet, diserte nun- 



ciatur, idese Dei sanctissimi et benig- 
nissimi repugnat, fatalismum fovet et 
libertatem hominum moralem tollit. 
— Wegscbeider, Institutiones, p. 217. 

X "So muss wohl zugegeben werden, 
dass ein Erweis Christi als Erlosers aus 
den Weissagungen unmoglich ist." — 
Sclileiermacher, Der Christliche Glaube, 
i. 2, a. 105. 



Essay III.] 



PEOPHECY. 



113 



prediction ever was or can be fulfilled, and compel them to con- 
clude that it is not ; and therefore their criticism and conclusions 
in such matters must be regarded not only with suspicion, but as 
probably untrue, the result of their dogmatic prejudices, and 
therefore utterly insufficient to outweigh the common judgment 
of Jews and Gentiles for more than two thousand years. 

14. Such would be the opinion of the student who had never 
heard of Evangelists, Apostles, or Eationalists in his life, but 
considered the subject, apart from all religious interests, merely in 
a scientific point of view. But in the question between the New 
Testament and modern criticism the Christian sees something 
more than an alternative between ancient Judaism and modern 
heathenism — he sees that it is an alternative between Christ and 
unbelief. The interpretations of the New Testament are the inter- 
pretations of Christ and of those to whom, " beginning at Moses, 
and all the prophets, he expounded in all the Scriptures the things 
concerning himself " (Luke xxiv. 27), "whose understandings He 
opened that they might understand the Scriptures " (Luke xxiv. 
45) ; to whom He sent His Holy Spirit to " bring all things to 
their remembrance whatsoever He had said unto them," and to 
t( guide them into all truth." (John xiv. 26, xvi. 13.) He cannot 
depart from their interpretations, and adopt the new and 
contradictory criticism, without admitting either that Christ 
knowingly accommodated Himself to the errors of the times, or 
that He was mistaken, or that His discourses have been 
incorrectly reported ; any one of which admissions is equivalent 
to a renunciation of Christianity. The first is the supposition of 
some of the elder Eationalists, the second of some of the later, 
and the third apparently of many modern critics. To admit the 
first is to deny our Lord's integrity, to concede the second is to 
make him a mere fallible man, and to receive the third is to 
take away the main ground of our faith in Christ. The lowest 
theory of inspiration, at all compatible with faith, is that " it 
protects the doctrine." Our Lord's doctrine is contained in His 
discourses, and part of those discourses is His interpretation of 
prophecy, and the promise of the Holy Spirit to guide His 
disciples. If in those discourses, or those of His disciples, the 
prophecies are falsely interpreted, the doctrine is not protected, 
the promise of the Spirit cannot have been fulfilled, and we are 
brought to the horrid and blasphemous conclusion that Christ, 

I 



114 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



" The Way, the Truth, and the Life," was fallible, and that His 
word is not to be depended upon. From these consistent and 
necessary conclusions the Essayists do not shrink any more 
than their German masters. They reject the New Testament 
interpretation of prophecy, and then consistently deny the 
authority of the New Testament itself. He who would sweep 
away all predictive prophecy insinuates that the Gospel portrait 
of our Lord is dimmed "by the haze of mingled imagination 
and remembrance, with which his awful figure could scarcely 
fail to be at length invested by affection." * Another says that 
"The New Testament writings leave us in uncertainty as to 
the descent of Jesus Christ according to the flesh, whether by 
His mother He were of the tribe of Judah, or of the. tribe of 
Levi;"f implies that His birth at Bethlehem and the announce- 
ment of it by the Angels are doubtful ; and that the three first 
Gospels, though more trustworthy than the fourth, contain only 
" more exact traditions of what He actually said." A third, who, 
following Keimarus4 doubts whether any one passage from the 
Psalms or Prophets quoted in the Epistles is rightly inter- 
preted^ insinuates that our Lord's prediction concerning the 
clay of judgment has failed because it is inseparable from that of 
the destruction of Jerusalem, and in another work expressly 
teaches that in this matter our Lord was mistaken. || Thus 
the example of foreign critics and their followers at home 
warns us that if we give up the prophetic interpretations of 
Christ and the Apostles, we must prepare also to part with our 
Christianity, and begin a painful and not very profitable search 
for those crumbs of Divine truth, which these kind critics still 
suppose to be scattered about in the Prophets and Evangelists, 
and which can only be recognized by the verifying faculty of the 
critic. But if we believe in. Christ, and those whom He taught 
by His Spirit, we must take their principle of interpretation as 
ours, and rest assured that the interpretations which they have 
given exhibit the true mind of that Spirit who spake by the 
prophets. The wise men, and the scribes, and the disputers of 
the day may decry this principle as unscientific, and protest 



* 'Essays and Keviews,' p. 80. § Page 406. 

t Ibid., p. 180, 203. || See Professor Jowett's « Commen- 

+ Wolfenbuttel * Fragments,' § 34- tary to tbe First Epistle to the Thessa- 

45. lonians,' p. 108-111. 



Essay III.] 



PEOPHECY. 



115 



that it is better not to read the Bible at all, than to read with 
such restrictions ; but Christians may be content with the wisdom 
that came down from above, and with the liberty wherewith 
Christ has made them free. Where our Lord or an inspired 
Apostle has spoken, we abide by the interpretation. 

15. Here, however, it is necessary to guard against mistake. 
Where passages of the prophecies are cited or applied, attention 
must be paid to the mind and intention of the speaker or writer, 
as sometimes Old Testament language is used without any 
intention of intimating a fulfilment of prophecy either direct or 
typical. The words were suitable to express the feelings or 
thoughts of the writer, and they were adopted. Thus when 
St. Paul says, " I say, have they not heard ? Yes, verily, their 
sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the end of 
the world," there is no reason for supposing that the Apostle 
looked upon Ps. xix. 4 as a prophecy fulfilled in the preaching 
of the Gospel. The Psalm speaks of the heavens and the 
firmament. But the words aptly and beautifully expressed 
what the disciples of Christ had already done, and Paul was 
guided to adopt them, the rather because in the Psalm itself the 
parallel is drawn between the book of nature and the book of 
revelation, the harmonious testimony of the works and word of 
God. Another instance occurs 1 Cor. xv. 32 : "If the dead rise 
not, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Here is a 
quotation from Isai. xxii. 13. The words of the prophet forcibly 
depicted the character of those of whom the Apostle was 
speaking, and they are adopted accordingly. This principle is 
demonstrated by 2 Tim. ii. 19 : " The foundation of God stand- 
eth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his." 
The latter words are a quotation from Numb. xvi. 5, referring to 
the rebellion of Korah and his company, but adopted by the 
Apostle, just as the later prophets, especially J eremiah, express 
their message occasionally in citations from their predecessors 
or from the Pentateuch. 

In the next place, it is to be observed that Old Testament 
passages are sometimes cited simply to confirm a doctrine, or to 
form the foundation of an argument ; as when the Apostle says 
(Kom. ix. 7) " Neither because they are the seed of Abraham, are 
they all children : but in Isaac shall thy seed be called." The 
latter words are cited to prove that mere fleshly descent does not 

I 2 



116 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



constitute a right to the inheritance or God's favour. Ishmael 
was according to the flesh the child of Abraham, but it was to 
Isaac and his posterity that the inheritance of the promises was 
given. In like manner our Lord (Matt. xiii. 14) applies Isai. vi. 
9, 10 to the Jews whom He addressed, and St. Paul applies 
the same words (Acts xxviii. 26) to the Jews at Eome. They 
contain a general principle of God's dealings with men, appli- 
cable at all times. So St. Paul (Eom. x. 12) employs the words 
of Joel, " Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall 
be saved," to prove that there is no difference between the Jew 
and the Gentile. The stress is upon the words 7ra? yap o? pt£tt* by\ 
" every one." Not to the Jews only, but to every one who calls 
upon the name of the Lord, God promises salvation, therefore 
there is no difference, &c. The object for which the quotation 
is made must be kept in view, else the conclusiveness of the 
argument will be missed, and a wrong interpretation given to 
the prophecy. As for example (Acts xv. 15 — 17), where James 
proves the right of the Gentiles to be received into the Church 
without circumcision, he says, " Simeon hath declared how God 
at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people 
for His name. And to this agree the words of the prophets ; as 
it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the 
tabernacle of David, which is fallen down . . . that the residue 
of men * might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles on 
whom my name is called, saith the Lord." Some readers and 
interpreters fix their eye upon the tabernacle of David, and 
seeing that that was not literally fulfilled, take it figuratively of 
the Christian Church, and thereby do violence to the words of 
the prophecy, and at the same time miss St. James's argument. 
The question was, whether the Gentiles, i.e. without circumcision 
and obedience to the Mosaic Law, could be received into the 
Christian Church. The majority of Jewish Christians thought 
that they could not. St. Peter proved that these persons were 
wrong by an appeal to fact. St. James shows the same by a 
reference to prophecy. His object was not to quote and show a 
fulfilment of one prediction, but the general tenour of all 
respecting the call of the Gentiles as such, and therefore he says 
in the plural, "To this agree the words of the prophets." At 



* Amos, ix. 11, 12. 



Essay III.] 



PKOPHECY. 



117 



the same time lie selects one, in which the Gentiles \p^X Wvrj] 
are mentioned byname with the addition "all," "all nations," and 
where it is said that the name of the Lord is called upon them. 
The stress of the argument rests upon the word " Gentiles," and 
upon the fact that God's name is called upon them ; as if he 
would say, " Here in Amos men upon whom the Lord's name is 
called are still spoken of as Gentiles ; they cannot therefore be 
persons circumcised and keeping the Law, and therefore the 
name of the Lord may now also be called upon Gentiles as such, 
and therefore there is no necessity for circumcising them. To 
enter the Church of Christ it is not necessary that they should 
cease to be Gentiles, or become proselytes by circumcision." * 

16. In the next place words are quoted from the prophets, 
which contain no prediction at all, and are yet spoken of as being 
fulfilled, because the event to which they allude was a type of 
that to w r hich they are applied. Our Lord and, after Him, 
the Apostles, lay down the principle that past history may 
represent that which is to happen hereafter. Thus the Saviour 
refers to the brazen serpent, and to Jonah as prefiguring His 
resurrection, and even the time of it on the third day. St. Paul 
teaches that Hagar and Sarah are typical of the covenants ; the 
Paschal lamb of Christ's atoning death ; the passage of the Ked 
Sea of baptism ; the smitten rock of Christ. The author of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Peter in his allusion to the deluge, 
and St. John in his mystical application of the names Sodom, 
Egypt, and Babylon, confirm the principle, which helps us to 
interpret passages of the Old Testament, such as those where 
the Messiah is called David, and to understand passages of the 
New Testament, where w T hat was spoken of David is applied to 
our Lord. The principle also solves the apparent difficulty of 
two passages strongly insisted upon by the enemies of Christi- 
anity. Concerning our Lord's early sojourn in Egypt, St. 
Matthew says, that it happened " that it might be fulfilled which 
was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt 
have I called my son," — and respecting the slaughter of the 
children at Bethlehem, "Then was fulfilled that which was 



* The account of this dispute is a I of the gate, i. e. proselytes without 

strong testimony to the credibility, j circumcision, could only be received 

knowledge, and good faith of the writer, j when all the twelve tribes were in the 

The Pharisees believed that proselytes ! land. 



118 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Kama was a voice 
heard." In neither case does St. Matthew quote predictions, 
but Hosea's and Jeremiah's references to past history. When 
Hosea said, "Out of Egypt have I called my son," or when 
Jeremiah spoke of Kachel weeping for her children, neither was 
uttering a prediction of the future, but alluding to facts long- 
past. Hosea was alluding to the Exodus eight centuries before, 
and Jeremiah to the carrying away of the Ten Tribes one 
hundred years before he wrote. St. Matthew therefore speaks 
of them as fulfilled in the only way in which facts can be 
fulfilled, in events the antitypes of those referred to. 

17. But after making allowance for these and numerous other 
similar applications of prophecy, there remain many which the 
Lord and the Apostles interpret as specially spoken in reference 
to Christ and Christianity. It has ever been the belief of all 
orthodox writers that Christ claimed to be the Messiah foretold 
by the prophets. It is also acknowledged by Rationalist divines. 
Thus Yon Colin says that the sick who had been healed, the 
common people, his own immediate adherents, acknowledged 
Him as the Messiah, and adds, " That Jesus approved, and even 
called forth this view of Himself, is evident from His words and 
His conduct. 1st. From His answer to Peter (Matt. xvi. 17) ; His 
approval of the acclamations of the people (Luke xix. 34, 40 ; 
Matt. xxi. 15, 16). 2nd. From His assuming the names belonging 
to the Messiah, especially the titles Son of God and Son of Man 
from Dan. vii. 13, 14. 3rd. From His claiming the privileges 
attributed to the Messiah, as the full unfolding and explanation 
of the Law (Matt. v. 17) ; the assertion that He was Lord of the 
Sabbath (Matt. xii. 8) ; His reformation of the temple service 
(John ii. 13, 20) ; His dispensation of His disciples from the 
usual fasts (Matt. ix. 14) ; and His claiming the right to forgive 
sins. 4th. From His express declaration that He was the Messiah 
(John iv. 25, 26, xvii. 3 ; Matt. xxvi. 63, 64, &c.)— This his asser- 
tion that He was sent from God, as the founder of a new theocracy, 
Jesus proved to be true — 1, From the Holy Scriptures of His 
people, which bare witness of His person and His works. According 
to the general convictions, the Law and the Prophets spake of an 
ideal theocracy. There was an unanimity of opinion as to the pas- 
sages which treated of the ideal King, and also as to the particular 
features of his character as drawn [by the prophets]. Whosoever, 



Essay in.] 



PROPHECY. 



119 



therefore, gave himself out for the Messiah, was under the neces- 
sity of proving that these features were found in him. Jesus, 
therefore, often employed the declarations of the Law and the 
Prophets to convince the Jews that He was the Messiah. . . . 
The application of the prophetic passages to Himself cannot be 
explained as accommodation, as Jesus in the circle of His confi- 
dential disciples, and after Him the Apostles in their discourses 
and Epistles, adhere to this application." * The same author 
teaches elsewhere (p. 89) that our Lord received the Law and 
the Prophets as the inspired word of God, and " employed the 
prophetic oracles in these writings as testimonies to His own 
appearance and works (John v. 39, 46 ; Luke iv. 21). He 
pointed out especially and often that His sufferings must happen 
according to the announcements of these Holy Books, and were 
therefore inevitable ordinances of God : Matt. xxvi. 24 ; Mark ix. 
12, xiv. 49 ; Luke xviii. 31—33, xxii. 37, xxiv. 26, 27." 

18. Now the two prophets to whose writings our Lord and the 
Apostles most emphatically refer are Daniel and Isaiah ; and by 
their references they not only interpret particular passages, but 
establish the genuineness of the books. Our Lord not only cites 
the prophet Daniel by name, when speaking of " the abomina- 
tion of desolation" (Matt. xxiv. 15), but has been pleased to 
adopt from that book the designation of His kingdom, and the 
title which He appropriates to Himself. The expressions " King- 
dom of Heaven," and " Son of Man," are confessedly taken from 
the second and seventh chapters of Daniel. The latter expres- 
sion is particularly important. Meyer says — " Its simple meaning- 
is, The Messiah. It is derived from the awful and striking- 
representation in the prophetic vision (Dan. vii. 13) so well 
known to the J ews, and occurring also in the pre-Christian book 
of Enoch, in which the Messiah appears in the clouds of heaven, 
as ' The Son of Man ' (oo? vlos av6pa)7rov), surrounded by the 
angels of the Divine throne of judgment (see Ewald, ' Gesch. 
Chr.,' p. 79), that is, in a form nothing different from, that of an 
ordinary man. Jesus, inasmuch as in Him the Messiah was 
come, was, in the realisation, that Son of Man whose form was 
seen in Daniel's vision. As often, therefore, as Jesus in His dis- 



* Yon Colin, ' Biblische Theologie,' 
ii. p. 116-18, and 89 ; comp. Wegschei- 
der, ' Institutiones,' § 119, especially 



Note C. ; Knobel, ' Prophetism.' i. 388 ; 
De Wette, ' Biblische Dogmatik,' § 1S9. 



120 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



courses says ' The Son of Man,' lie means ' The Son of Man of 
that vision of Daniel,' that is, The Messiah." * It is needless to 
say how often this expression occurs in all the Gospels in our 
Lord's discourses, especially on the most solemn occasions, as 
when He describes His second advent (Matt. xiii. 41, xxiv. 27, 
30, 44, xxv. 31) ; when He speaks of His passion (John hi. 13, 
14) on the very eve of its accomplishment (Matt. xxvi. 24) ; and 
when, after formal adjuration, He declares Himself the Christ, 
the Son of God, " Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting 
on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven ;" 
so that it is impossible to separate the essential elements of 
Christ's teaching from the book of Daniel, and equally impos- 
sible to suppose that He who came into the world to bear witness 
to the truth would ground His claims and His most solemn doc- 
trine on a forgery. The question of the genuineness and au- 
thenticity of Daniel cannot, therefore, be separated from that 
respecting the fallibility or infallibility of the Saviour. By 
asserting that the book of Daniel is ungenuine — a forged and 
false prophecy — men charge our Lord with the uncritical igno- 
rance of His times, or a deliberate application of a document 
which He knew to be false. But the student need not be 
alarmed at the greatness of the issue. He must remember that 
the original assault on Daniel was made by the heathen Por- 
phyry, an able but bitter enemy of Christianity in the third cen- 
tury, and is continued, partly in the original form of objection, 
by those who deny all supernatural revelation, make our Lord 
himself a mere man, and are as opposed to the doctrine of 
Christ's proper Deity as Porphyry himself. It must never be 
forgotten by those who read Kationalist books, that even when, 
like Schleiermacher and his school, they use the expression " Son 
of God," they use it in a non-natural sense, rejecting the accounts 
of His supernatural birth, and regarding Him as the Son of 
Joseph and Mary.-|* They are interested, therefore, not only in 



* H. A. W. Meyer's « Comm. on Matt, 
viii. 20.' Fleck also says : "Denotatur 
enim is, quern omnes norunt, qui omni- 
um orefertur (sensu eximio ita vocatus) 
filius liominis Danieliticus=M.essi&s.'" 
4 De Kegno Divino,' p. 121. The italics 
are Fleck's. He also refers to the 
Rabbis, Wetstein, Grotius, Lampe, 



Stahl, Kuinoel, Liicke, Tholuck. See 
also the references given above to Von 
Colin, Wegscheider, De Wette, Knobel. 

f Compare ' Essays and Reviews,' pp. 
82, 88, 89, 202, 203, 351, 352, 354, 355 ; 
and Schleiermacher' s ' Glaubenslehre,' 
3rd edit., p. 64-69. 



Essay III.] 



PKOPHECY. 



121 



getting rid of the predictions in Daniel, especially such an one 
as the seventy weeks, but also in setting aside a remarkable tes- 
timony to the Old Testament doctrine of the Deity of Mes- 
siah. The two main nationalist arguments against the book of 
Daniel are — first, that in their opinion it contains accurate pre- 
dictions concerning Antiochus Epiphanes, which they borrow 
from Porphyry ; and secondly, that it relates miracles, and 
therefore according to their own system cannot be true. This is 
strongly urged by Knobel. " The history of Daniel," he says, 
" has a legendary, almost a fairy-tale complexion, and represents 
the events in a manner in which they could not possibly have 
happened. They could have assumed this form only after a long 
oral transmission. For in Hebrew history, where numerous 
myths and legends occur, as, for example, in that of the 
patriarchs, of Moses, Balaam, Samson, Elijah, Elisha, the narra- 
tives were committed to writing a considerable time after the 
events : when, on the contrary, events have a natural appearance, 
as in the books of Ezra, Kehemiah, the first of Maccabees, there 
they were generally committed to writing at the time, or very 
soon after the events. This is an historic canon, of the validity 
of which there can be no doubt." * 

To men holding such axioms of criticism, the book of Daniel 
must, as a matter of course, be as ungenuine as the narrative of 
our Lord's miracles. Criticisms, therefore, founded on such 
principles must always appear questionable to a thoughtful in- 
quirer, even if he is not able to show their weakness or falsehood. 
The believer in the Gospels will feel assured that they are not 
unanswerable, and a little inquiry will satisfy him that they 
have been answered again and again, by scholars trained in the 
schools of modern German philology and criticism, and every 
way equal to the task. Within the last thirty years, Hengsten- 
berg, Sack, Havernik, Keichel, Schulze, Herbst, Yaihinger, 
Delitsch, Oeler, Auberlen, Ziindel, have stood forward as suc- 
cessful vindicators of the genuineness of Daniel's prophecies. 
Kurz, Keil, v. Hoffmann, Drechsel, Baumgarten have also con- 
fessed their adhesion to the ancient faith, f A defender of the 
accuracy of Daniel's chronological statements has appeared in 



* ' Proplietismus/ ii. 401. 

f Compare Auberlen's ' Der Prophet Daniel,' p. 164-177. 



122 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



Marcus von Niebuhr, in his History of Assyria and Babylon. 
These writers show, one or other of them, that those interpreters 
who would make the seventy weeks end with Antiochus 
Epiphanes contradict and confute one another ; that that period 
must begin at the going forth of the decree to rebuild Jerusalem, 
and must extend to the times of our Lord ; that from the neces- 
sary and proved relations between chapters ix. and xi., the latter 
looks far beyond the days of Antiochus. They have answered 
the objections from the length of Daniel's life, from supposed 
contradictions, from history, from dates. They have proved that 
some of the supposed Gra3cisnis are not Graecisms at all ; that 
others were naturalised in the time of Daniel, the Greeks having 
had relations long before with the Assyrians; and, above all, 
that the Canon of the Old Testament was closed within one 
hundred years of the restoration of the Jewish State, and the 
book of Daniel, if not written before, could not have been ad- 
mitted into it ; that therefore the book of Daniel is both genuine 
and authentic* 

19. The other prophecy, whose genuineness Rationalist cri- 
ticism has specially delighted to dispute, is that which is also 
specially vouched for by the New Testament, namely, that con- 
tained in the latter part of Isaiah (chapters xl. — lxvi.) and which 
seems really the connecting link between Old and New Testa- 
ment revelation. It is a singular coincidence that those portions 
of the Old Testament which are most essential to New Testament 
theology — as the Pentateuch, the book of Daniel, and the latter 
part of Isaiah — are just those parts which Eationalist criticism 
has selected as the favourite fields on which to display its skill. 
Those Messianic predictions, which it can explain with plausibility 
as expressing Jewish hopes of earthly grandeur and prosperity, 
and incompatible with the teaching of Christ, it pronounces to be 
genuine. The prophecies which represent the Son of Man as a 
heavenly judge, coming in the clouds of heaven (Dan. vii.) ; the 
Messiah as cut off (Dan. ix.) ; Sion's King as meek and lowly, 
and riding upon an ass (Zech. ix.) ; the good shepherd, sold for 
thirty pieces of silver (Zech. xi.) ; pierced by the inhabitants of 
Jerusalem (Zech. xii. 10, xiii.) ; despised and rejected of men, 
cut off out of the land of the living, one upon whom the Lord 



* Compare what Bishop Butler has said : * Analogy,' p. ii. c. vii. 3. 



Essay III.] 



PROPHECY. 



123 



liatli laid the iniquities of us all (Isaiah liii.)— are just the pre- 
dictions which it proves to be ungenuine. The book of Daniel, 
the latter half of Zechariah, and the conclusion of Isaiah, which, 
if genuine, are fatal to Eationalist theology, are by Eationalist 
criticism condemned as ungenuine, in direct opposition to the 
teaching of the New Testament. The quotations from Zecha- 
riah are well known, the determination of our Lord to fulfil the 
ninth chapter of that prophecy obvious in the Gospels. The 
condemned portion of Isaiah is also emphatically honoured by 
the Lord and His Apostles. From the beginning to the end it is 
quoted as the work of Isaiah, and as fulfilled in our Lord. John 
the Baptist begins the interpretation with the opening prediction 
(Isaiah xl.) by declaring, " I am the voice of one crying in the 
wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said the 
prophet Esaias " (John i. 23). Matthew xii. 17 — 21 explains 
Isaiah xlii. 1 — 3 of our Lord, and as the prophecy of Isaiah. 
The corresponding passage (xlix. 6) respecting the Lord's 
righteous servant is interpreted by St. Paul of the call of the 
G-entiles (Acts xiii. 47). The fifty-third chapter is appropriated 
by our Lord Himself (Luke xxii. 37) ; and, after Him, explained 
by Philip (Acts viii.) ; by St. Peter (1 Epist. ii. 24, 25) ; and in 
the Epistle to the Hebrews (ix. 28) of the sacrifice of Christ. 
Chapter lxi. 1 is also interpreted by our Lord of Himself 
(Luke iv. 17 — 21) ; and the end of the prophecy (lxv. 1) is in 
the Epistle to the Eomans (x. 20, 21) expounded of the conver- 
sion of the Gentiles, and the unbelief of the Jewish people. Thus 
the whole of the prophecy, from the beginning to the end, is in 
the New Testament ascribed to Isaiah as the writer, and cited as 
being fulfilled in our Lord, His sufferings, and His salvation. 
Both statements are denied by Eationalist writers, so that we 
cannot follow the latter without rejecting the teaching of the 
Lord and His Apostles, and the common belief of the Christian 
Church and the Jewish nation for nearly 1800 years. With 
regard to the authorship of this portion of Isaiah, there was 
during that long period only one opinion. One solitary rabbi in 
the twelfth century suggested a doubt on the subject, but, with 
the exception of Spinoza, was not followed by either Jews or 
Christians. It was not until men had ceased to believe in Christ 
that they began to question the latter prophecy of Isaiah. The 
Buxtorfs, the Carpzovs, Glassius, Gussetius, Cocceius, Venema, 



124 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



Vitringa, Schultens, Danz, the Michaelis, acquiesced in the 
judgment of antiquity. Eyen Paulus says that the diction is as 
pure as in the other parts of Isaiah. Eichhorn adduced no in- 
stances of later language. Bertholdt confesses that there are no 
traces of later usage. The first, and the great objection still, is 
that Cyrus is mentioned by name. When men came to teach 
either that God could not know beforehand the name of one of 
His creatures, or, if He could, could not or would not communi- 
cate it before the existence of that creature, they necessarily 
thought that the prediction concerning the conqueror of Babylon 
must have been written after his appearance. The denial of the 
genuineness came first, the criticism came after, similar to that 
famous course of law which first condemned and executed, and 
afterwards proceeded to trial. Yet the process has led to bene- 
ficial results. The Rationalist dogmatic criticism has been sub- 
jected to a thorough examination by Hengstenberg, Havernik, 
KLeinert, Drechsler, Keil, and others. The objections haTe been 
fairly met, and the claims of Isaiah to the latter chapters vindi- 
cated on various grounds, as, for example, the plain references to 
those chapters in the books of Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, 
Jeremiah ; the circumstances of the times described, so exactly 
agreeing to the days of Isaiah, not to the close of the exile ; the 
historical relations ; the similarity of style and manner — the 
peculiarities of diction ; the entire tone and colouring, not to 
mention other evidences external and internal. Indeed, Ewald 
and Bleek have made a fatal rent in the adverse criticism bv 
confessing that the passage lvi. 9 — lvii. 11, was written before 
the exile. " This passage," they say, " may be received with the 
highest probability as a prophetic oracle, uttered before the exile, 
perhaps by Isaiah himself; more probably not long before the 
exile, certainly at a time when the Jewish State still existed, as 
it is only on this supposition that the contents and composition 
can be understood." * 

20. Even that chapter which invests the controversy with its 
chief interest (liii. 1 — 12) is supposed by Ewald to be the work 
of a prophet anterior to the author of the other chapters ; and, refer- 
ring to the strong traits of personal individuality, not personifica- 
tion, especially in verse 8, he says — " The belief of after times, that 



* Bleek, ' Einleitung,' p. 456 ; Ewald, ' Proplieten des alten Bundes," p. 407, 8. 



Essay III.] 



PKOPHECY. 



125 



the historic Messiah is here to he fourvH, lay certainly very near at 
hand." * Indeed the prophetic picture of the sufferings of Jesus 
of Nazareth is so lifelike, that when it has been for the first time 
brought before Jews ignorant of the passage, they have affirmed 
that the chapter has been inserted in the Christian editions of 
the Hebrew Bible ; whilst others, not a few, have been brought 
by it to faith in Christ. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at 
that for more than seventeen centuries the Christian Church re- 
ceived the prophecy as genuine ; and that the Fathers, the me- 
dieval writers, the Keformers, Protestants and Eomanists after 
the Keformation, with the one exception of Grotius, interpreted 
it of our Lord, until Deistic infidelity found its way into the 
hearts and minds of so-called Christian divines, and the necessi- 
ties of the new theology imperatively demanded a new interpre- 
tation. First Neology and then Kationalism set to work, and 
the result is a curious specimen of the alleged agreement of 
modern German expositors of prophecy. Here is one of the 
most striking and extended prophecies to be found in the Bible ; 
not an obscure verse, where agreement is impossible, but an 
oracle running through twenty-seven chapters ; and yet German 
commentators have not yet decided as to the fundamental prin- 
ciple of interpretation, whether the subject is an individual or a 
personified aggregate. Neither do the two parties formed by 
this difference agree among themselves. Of the first class, some 
interpret it of King Uzziah, others of Josiah, others of the 
prophet Isaiah himself, others of an unknown prophet persecuted 
and killed in the exile ;t Bunsen alone, after Grotius, of the 
prophet Jeremiah. In the second class, the greatest names of 
Germany stand arrayed against each other. Eichhorn, Hende- 
werck, Koster, Hitzig, Ewald, Beck, interpret the prophecy of 
the Jewish people, actual or ideal. Paulus, Thenius, Maurer, 
von Colin, Knobel, say that " The servant of the Lord " means 
the better portion of the exiles. Bosenmiiller, Gesenius, De 
Wette, assert that he is a personification of the collective pro- 
phetic order.i For several of these interpretations, these distin- 
guished writers are indebted to Jewish polemics. The application 
to J osiah was invented by Abarbanel in the sixteenth century ; 



* Ibid, in the note, 
f See Hengstenberg, ' Christologie,' 
i. p. 306 ; G-esenius's ' Commentary, ' iii. 



pp. 164-172. 

% See Knobel, ' Commentary,' p. 3S2- 
390. 



126 



AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay III. 



that to Jeremiah by Saadiah Gaon, in the ninth century ; that 
to the whole Jewish people was known to the Jews with whom 
Origen disputed, and is most generally accepted by modern 
Jews ; that to the pious or better portion of the people is found 
in Kashi, in the eleventh century. The ancient Jewish interpre- 
tation was that which referred the prophecy to the Messiah. 
From the LXX. it can be inferred with certainty that they dis- 
tinguished between the servant of the Lord and the people of 
Israel. This is evident from their translation of xlii. 6 and 
xlix. 6, where they plainly make the Lord's servant " The raiser 
up of Jacob," and The restorer of the dispersion of Israel," and 
" a covenant of the people," which words cause such difficulties 
to Kationalist interpreters as to make them violate the commonest 
proprieties of Hebrew idiom. When, therefore, the LXX. in- 
serted the words " Jacob " and " Israel " in xlii. 1, — " Jacob is my 
servant, and I will help him : Israel is mine elect, my soul hath 
accepted him," — they did not mean to apply those words to the 
people, but to give to the servant of the Lord that title which 
he has in the Hebrew text in xlix. 3. " And He said to me, 
Thou art my servant : Israel art thou, in whom I will be glori- 
fied," * where Gesenius, and before him J. D. Michaelis, in order 
to get rid of the plain meaning, propose to set critical authority 
at defiance, and oust the word " Israel " from the text. The 
LXX. have it here all right, where they plainly distinguish be- 
tween the Lord's servant and the people, and thereby prove that 
they thought the words " Jacob " and " Israel " titles of this ser- 
vant, and not the name of the people. And, therefore, in xlii. 
19, " Who is blind but my servant? or deaf as my messenger 
that I sent ? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the 
Lord's servant ?" which they interpret of the people, and not of 
the servant ; they turn the singulars into plurals to prevent mis- 
take — Kal Tt9 TV<fi\o$ aXX? rj oi 7raiSe$ /iov, jcal KO)(j)ol aX)C t) oi 
tcvpievovres avrwv; /ecu irv(p\codrjo-av oi hovKou rod Seot. 

The early traditions of the Hebraist Jews are clear and un- 
equivocal, and are identical with the New Testament interpreta- 
tion, as is admitted even by the modern Kabbis,| who, for 



* This is the translation given by 
Gesenius of the text as it stands. 

f By modern Kabbis are meant those 
who lived from the 11th century on, 



when, partly owing to the hostility ex- 
cited by the Crusaders in the Jewish 
mind, and partly from their intercourse 
with the Mahometans, Jewish inter- 



Essay III.] 



PKOPHECY. 



127 



polemical reasons, interpret differently. Aben Esra, in the 
twelfth century, says, " Many have interpreted this chapter of 
Messiah, because our ancients of blessed memory have said that 
Messiah was born the same day that the Temple was destroyed, 
and that he is bound in chains/' Kabbi Alshech, who nourished 
in Palestine in the middle of the sixteenth century, makes a 
similar confession — " Behold our Kabbis have with one mouth 
confirmed, and received by tradition that King Messiah is here 
spoken of ... He beareth the iniquities of the children of 
Israel, and behold His reward is with Him." The truth of these 
confessions may be seen by consulting the ancient books of 
authority. In Isai. xlii. 1, and lii. 13, Jonathan, about the time 
of our Lord, adds Messiah after the word " servant ;" " Behold, 
my servant, the Messiah." The book of Zohar, regarded with 
the utmost reverence by all pious Jews, and parts of which are 
certainly from the first century of Christianity, also says plainly 
that Messiah bears the sins of the people, and that " If he had 
not removed them from Israel and taken them upon himself, no 
man could bear the chastisement of Israel on account of the 
punishment pronounced in the Law. This is what is written — 
Surely He hath borne our sicknesses. The Talmud (Sanhedrin, 
vol. 98, col. 2), the Psikta, and Yalkut Shimoni, all have the 
same interpretation. " Behold my servant shall deal very pru- 
dently — this is the King Messiah. He shall be exalted, and 
extolled, and be very high. He shall be exalted more than 
Abraham . . . He shall be extolled more than Moses . . . He 
shall be higher than the ministering angels. 'But He was 
wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniqui- 
ties : the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with 
His stripes we are healed.' Kabbi Huna, in the name of Kabbi 
Acha says, the chastisements were divided into three parts : — 
one to David and the fathers ; one to the rebellious generation ; 
and one to King Messiah." Indeed, such possession had this 
interpretation of the Jewish mind, that it found its way into the 
prayers of the Synagogue, and there it remains until this day. 
In the Liturgy for the Day of Atonement is found the following 
remarkable passage, which is given from David Levi's edition of 



pretation and Jewish theology under- I widely from ancient Judaism as well 
went a great change, and diverged I as from Christianity. 



128 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



the Synagogue service books, and in his translation. " Before 
He created anything, He established His dwelling (the temple) 
and Yinnon* Our righteous anointed is departed from us : 
horror hath seized us and we have none to justify. He hath 
borne the yoke of our iniquities, and of our transgression, and is 
wounded because of our transgression. He beareth our sins on 
His shoulder that He may first pardon for our iniquities. We 
shall be healed by His wound at the time that the Eternal will 
create Him (the Messiah) as a new creature. bring Him up 
from the circle of the earth, raise Him up from Seir, to assemble 
us the second time on Lebanon by the hand of Yinnon"^ The 
Jewish editor, David Levi, endeavours to break the force of this 
passage by a note, explaining "our righteous anointed" of 
Josiah. But as he confesses that the whole passage refers to the 
Messiah, with whose name it begins and ends, and as the 
Hebrew words for "our righteous anointed One," literally, 
" Messiah our righteousness," are a common Kabbinic designation 
of the Messiah, taken from Jer. xxiii. 6, this interpretation can 
only be regarded as a polemic evasion to avert the Jewish mind 
from the Christian interpretation of Isai. liii. Even in Levi's 
translation the passage speaks for itself, and as found in the 
service for the most solemn day in the whole Jewish year, 
proves that the Messianic interpretation was not only the an- 
cient, but the national reception of the chapter.i The Babbinic 
tradition of two Messiahs, one to suffer and the other to reign, 
seems also to be a witness or a homage to the ancient interpre- 
tation of this chapter, and to the deep national conviction of the 
need of an atonement. That this national persuasion ought to have 
some weight, even if not supported by the New Testament, will 
be admitted by candid readers. It acquires double weight 
from the fact that this interpretation is contrary to the worldly 
hopes of a conquering Messiah, so ardently entertained in the 



* Yinnon is the Hebrew word 
translated in the A. V. "shall be 
continued," Ps. lxxii. 17. But accord- 
ing to Jewish tradition, it is a name 
of the Messiah. " Yinnon was His 
name before the sun," i. e. before the 
creation of the world. As it comes 
from the verb to propagate, they 
seem to have taken it in the same 
sense as flDS, and to have un- 



derstood by it the Sonship of Messiah. 

t "The name of the Messiah, as 
alluding to Psalm lxxii. 17." (Levi's 
Note.) 

X Compare also the Prayers for the 
Feast of Passover, p. 72, where is ano- 
ther quotation of Isaiah liii. 13, 
which David Levi himself says means 
the true Messiah. 



Essay III.] 



PEOPHECY. 



129 



days of Koman domination in Palestine, and to which Rabbinic 
polemics still return in order to prove that Jesus cannot be the 
Messiah. With such hopes and prejudices, the idea of a suffering 
and despised Messiah could never have arisen, nor have been 
entertained, if it had not previously existed, and been received 
as true and genuine. The idea of pardon and salvation through 
the sufferings of another was equally contrary to the self- 
righteous doctrine of the Pharisees. The existence and con- 
tinuance of such an interpretation is, therefore, strong proof of 
its antiquity, and of its original source. The national interpre- 
tation of one of their own records, under such considerations, 
ought to have at least as much weight as the discordant and 
controverted opinions of critics living, according to their own 
showing, 2300 years after the record was written, and filled 
with antecedent prejudices against a true exegesis. 

He must indeed be a man " that leans to his own understand- 
ing," who can lightly esteem the judgment of the ancient Jewish 
Church, and the common consent of all Christian scholars for 
nearly 1800 years,* and believe that he has found what such a 
goodly company have failed to perceive. But the Christian 
bows to still higher authority than the common judgment of this 
mighty host of the great, the good, the wise, and the learned, in 
so many ages and nations ; he learns from Him whose Spirit 
spake in the prophets, and guided His disciples and Apostles into 
all truth. Christ and His Apostles have interpreted this chapter 
of His sufferings, death, and resurrection-glory ; and the provi- 
dence of God has verified the interpretation. Not to speak of 
the past, our eyes still see the fulfilment of this prediction. The 
most improbable prophecy in the world was this which pre- 
dicted that a J ew, despised by his people, numbered amongst 
transgressors, cut off out of the land of the living, should, never- 
theless, prolong his days, be the light of the Gentiles, and God's 
salvation to the ends of the earth. And yet this is what has 
been accomplished, and is accomplishing itself before our eyes. 
In spite of all the pride, prejudice, and power of Greeks and 
Komans, the ignorance and fury of barbarian invaders, the self- 
sufficiency of human knowledge, the vices of civilisation, Jesus 
of Nazareth has triumphed, and triumphs, and is still the light 



* The one exception of Grotius makes the universal agreement the more striking. 



130 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay III. 



of the world. The Christian humbly and thankfully accepts 
the teaching of the Lord, and the testimony of God's providence. 
The wondrous outline stands vividly marked on the page of 
prophecy ; the fulfilment as unmistakably inscribed on the 
prominent pages of the world's history. The one answers to 
the other, as the mirror to the human face, and he cannot be 
mistaken. No microscopic investigations of criticism can make 
the agreement doubtful. He does not despise or disregard the 
labours of even hostile critics. On the contrary, he carefully 
considers their every suggestion, thankfully receives the light 
which they have thrown on words and phrases, acknowledges 
their diligence, their genius, their learning, and their honesty, 
so far as their dogmatic prejudices allow them to be impartial. 
But Christ has spoken, and by Christ's words he abides. He, 
therefore, believes that the prophets spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost ; that they uttered predictions ; that many 
of the most seemingly improbable have been fulfilled, and are 
pledges that the remainder shall also be accomplished. He 
cannot join in the unbelieving cry, " Where is the promise of 
His coming ?" He does not believe that " since the fathers fell 
asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of 
the creation," but that Christ " in His majesty rides prosperously 
on in the cause of truth, and meekness, and righteousness ;" and 
" though the vision tarry," he waits for it, assured that it is "for 
an appointed time," and that " at the end it shall speak and not 
lie — it will surely come, it will not tarry." 



ESSAY IV. 
IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



CONTENTS OF ESSAY IV. 



1. Introductory remarks — practical 

applications and bearings of Ideo- 
logy. 

2. Professed objects of Ideology — 

chief peculiarity of the system. 

3. The contrast between this and older 

forms of scepticism. 

4. The two systems mutually destruc- 

tive. 

5. Proposed inquiry into the origin of 

the system. 

6. The outward world governed by 

universal laws. 

7. Difficulty of applying general prin- 

ciples to the events of secular his- 
tory. Fiction and history com- 
pared. 

8. The Ideologist's view of sacred 

history accounted for. 

9. 10. Contrasted with that taken by 

Christians. 

11. The Christian view illustrated and 

confirmed. 

12. Alternative set forth — the system 

of Ideologists repugnant to con- 
science, and to the Englishman's 
love of truth. 

13. Historical inquiry into the origin and 

development of Ideology. 

14. The Life of Jesus by Strauss. 

15. Early training of Strauss at Tu- 

bingen. 

16. Strauss at Berlin. Influence and 

character of Schleiermacher. 

17. Hegel — his position, influence, and 

general principles. 

18. Publication of the ' Life of Jesus ' 

— state of Germany at the time — - 
effects of the publication. 

19. General objects of that work. 

20. First part of the work destructive 

— way prepared by De Wette, 
Semler, Gabler, and Schleierma- 
cher. Myths. 

21. Result of the first part — as re- 

gards our Lord's history, and dis- 
courses. 

22. Strauss's theory as to the ideal 

truths which underlie the history 
of Christ. 

23. Development of Pantheism in the 

work on Christian Doctrine. 



24. Struggle of the followers of Schleier- 

macher and Hegel to shake off 
the responsibility. Other develop- 
ments of Hegelian principles. F. 
Eichter, Bruno Bauer. 

25. Eothe's work on the Christian 

Church — comparison with Dr. Ar- 
nold's view. 

26. Ultimate results of Hegelian prin- 

ciples. Feuerbach, Communists, 
Atheists, Revolution of 1848. 

27. Reaction. Ideology brought to Eng- 

land. 

28. Identity of principles as regards a 

future state. 

29. Church and State. 

30. Rejection of supernatural agency — 

myths — general scepticism. 

31. Position of Ideologists as miristers 

of the Church. 

32. Doctrinal safeguards. 

33. The practice of the Apostles con- 

sidered generally. 

34. St. Paul's proceedings in the case of 

the fornicator at Corinth, and of 
heretical teachers. 

35. The practice of the Early Church — 

doctrinal limitation not inaugurat- 
ed by Constantine. Council of Nice. 
The Creed accepted by the State. 

36. The practice of our own Church. 

The Bible or Word of God the 
foundation of fundamentals — the 
Creeds fundamental. Objects of the 
Articles. Subscription not requir- 
ed of the laity, but of ministers. 

37. Reason of the difference. 

38. Subscription a promise, as regards 

not belief, but ministerial acts. 

39. Obligation moral, not merely legal. 

40. Extent of the obligation. Feelings 

of the laity touching the meaning 
of subscription. 

41. The alleged alienation of the people 

from the Church. The fact doubt- 
ful—the cause not to be found in 
doctrinal teaching. Effects of the 
substitution of an ethical system 
for Christian doctrines. Position 
of a rationalistic minister in using 
the Liturgy. 

42. True object and duty of the Church. 

Probable results of changes. 

43. Concluding remarks. 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



1. The term Ideology is strange, and certainly not welcome to 
English ears; nor is it, perhaps, much to be feared that the 
system which bears the name will find many adherents, or 
exercise any direct influence upon the current of religious 
thought. A summary rejection may, therefore, at first sight, 
appear to be an effectual and satisfactory mode of disposing of 
its claims. Such indeed might be the case if we considered 
merely the abstract speculations with which Ideology is con- 
nected : but in its applications and bearings it assumes a veiy 
practical form. It touches the most important questions of 
morality, the most vital truths of religion. It affects the vera- 
city or trustworthiness of the witnesses of revelation, the 
genuineness and integrity of its documents, their origin and 
interpretation, and by a strictly logical, though not perhaps a 
very obvious consequence, the relations between the Church, 
her people, and ministers. Such points must be scrutinized ; the 
true character of the system, the principles on which it rests, 
and its inevitable results ought to be distinctly ascertained. 
Should it prove, as in all former controversies has been the case, 
that some great truths, not generally recognized in their fulness, 
find in the system, false and pernicious as it may be, a partial and 
inadequate expression ; and that the very objections of ideologists 
enable us to comprehend, somewhat more clearly than hereto- 
fore, some essential characteristics of the Christian revelation, that 
result, at least, will be welcome to those who watch with interest, 
though not without perplexity and apprehension, the progress of 
a religious speculation in an age remarkable for fearlessness, 
and, it may be hoped, for sincerity, in the pursuit of truth 

2. The object of Ideology, as it is described in the writings of 
Strauss, who first presented it in a complete and systematic 
form, was to reconcile belief in the spiritual truths which he 
recognized as the ideal basis of Christianity, with rejection of 
all the miraculous events, and by far the largest portion of the 



134 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IT. 



narrative, with which those truths are connected. The rejection 
rests upon an assumption of the utter incredibility of miracles, 
as irreconcileable with philosophical principles, and as contrary 
to experience ; and it is supported, as we shall see presently, by 
an unscrupulous use of arguments supplied by various schools 
of infidelity. But the chief peculiarity of the system is that, sub- 
ject to this assumption, it professes to account for the existence 
of a belief in the facts, and for the form in which the facts 
are represented, and to .explain the real significance of nar- 
ratives involving supernatural elements. The ideologist, or 
idealist, asserts that such narratives are myths, which it would 
be absurd to regard as true in the letter, but which may yet 
be treated with respect, and even with reverence, as symbols 
and representations of ideas which are of permanent interest 
and importance to mankind. The facts did not, and could not 
occur in the manner or under the circumstances described in 
Scripture, but they may yet be substantially, that is ideally 
true, as products of human consciousness, as expressing at least 
the aspirations or presentiments of a nature akin to the divine. 
Many writers of this school (and Strauss himself in several 
passages) adopt at times a far more offensive tone, and do not 
hesitate to attribute the origin of large portions of the Gospel 
narrative to the prepossessions of the writers, to their ignorance, 
credulity, and fanaticism, or to selfish and interested motives. 
We do not propose to discuss those speculations. The only form 
in which the theory of ideologists is calculated to produce any 
effect upon generous and elevated minds, is that which accepts 
the ideal principles as true, while it denies the historical 
character of the relations in which they are bodied forth. 

3. One point strikes us 'prima facie in considering this theory : 
and that is the very remarkable contrast which it exhibits to 
the position of those who formerly, either in England or on the 
Continent, denied the objective facts of revelation. The strongest 
attacks have proceeded hitherto, not only from a distinct, but a 
diametrically opposite point of view. Sceptics and infidels used 
to argue that the doctrinal statements in the Bible are oj)posed 
to reason, and more especially to the moral consciousness of 
man ; and they rejected the historical relations chiefly because 
they involved miraculous attestations to those statements. That 
position was at least consistent and intelligible : the issue one- 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



135 



about which there could be no mistake. The Christian advocate 
had, of course, to prove that the history was sustained by evidence 
sufficient to satisfy impartial inquirers ; but his great duty was to 
vindicate the Scriptural representations of the Divine attributes, 
and the principles on which God is described as conducting the 
moral government of the world. In the new system, on the 
contrary, the very adaptation of the doctrines of Scripture to 
our spiritual. nature is taken as a proof, or presumption, that the 
forms in which they are presented must have been invented 
or remoulded by the plastic imagination of man. It is assumed 
not merely that the existence of certain feelings, opinions, or 
aspirations accounts for belief in the facts narrated by the 
evangelists, but that, taken as a whole, the objective system of 
revelation sprang out of the belief — was spontaneously evolved 
from the half- conscious operations of the human mind. Thus 
the need of a reconciliation with God was repudiated as a super- 
stition by the old sceptic ; according to the idealist it was the 
feeling of such a need which invested the death of an innocent 
man with the attributes of a sacrificial atonement. The longing 
for communion with God, derided as mysticism by the former, 
according to the latter originated the idea of the incarnation ; 
while all that appeared necessary to substantiate the doctrine, 
in the way of miraculous attestation or divine endowment, was 
supplied by the credulity or imagination of the followers of one 
who, at a critical period in the world's history, concentrated in 
himself the reverence and admiration of zealous converts. 
Clustering around one gracious form, one wise and loving and 
truly sublime being, human yearnings, human tendernesses 
sought and found in him a visihle representation of the Deity* 
In short, according to ideologists, the circumstances of our Lord's 
nativity and baptism, His conflict with Satan, His manifestations 
of superhuman powers, and predictions of the immediate or 
remote future, His resurrection and ascension, — indeed all the 
cardinal facts of religion, — are so far from being, as older sceptics 
affirmed, opposed to our moral consciousness, that they are all 
but adequate representations of the ideal, which, if it could be 



* Strauss in his answer to Stendel 
makes the whole impulsive force of 
Christianity centre in the personality 
of Jesus. In the concluding chapter of 



the ' Leben Jesu,' he acknowledges the 
peculiar and unique grandeur of our 
Lord's person. 



136 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



realized, would satisfy the very deepest and most universal 
aspirations of mankind. 

4. Certainly no greater contrast could be imagined between 
two classes of men who concur in rejecting the facts, and employ 
nearly the same processes in their attempts to discredit the 
sacred narrative, so far as it involves what they are pleased to 
call violations * of universal laws. It may be that the two sys- 
tems are not merely contrasted to each other, but that each con- 
tains a principle, which, if disentangled from the errors in which 
it is enveloped, may suffice for the exposure and overthrow of 
the opposite fallacy. Destroying each other mutually as systems, 
each may leave a residuum of truth available for the defence of 
the position which they both assail. 

On the one side we have the fact, that inquirers ; whom none 
would hold to be influenced by doctrinal prejudices and pre- 
possessions, recognize the adaptation of Christian principles t 
to the wants and instincts of humanity. This fact not only 
contradicts, but it utterly subverts, the position of those who 
assert that the doctrines are so repugnant to those instincts as 
to make the transactions incredible by which they are attested. 
The old dry scepticism cannot stand when confronted with 
such a recognition of the intrinsic excellence and spirituality 
of Christian truth, as is at present actually professed by the 
majority, or at any rate by the most intellectual and influential, 
among those whom freethinkers regard as the leaders and 
representatives of modern thought.^ That form of disbelief has 
the ground cut away from under its feet. It must be regarded 
as a mere subjective impression, or an indication of disorder in 
a man's moral nature. The minds which reject such truths 
cannot be in what mere philosophers, looking on the whole 
matter from without, would admit to be a healthy and normal 
state. 



* See Butler's remarks on the ob- 
jections to miracles, 4 Analogy,' part ii. 
c. iv. His theory, that miracles may 
be referred to some universal, though 
unknown, law has been strangely mis- 
represented. 

t That was the opinion of all the 
followers of Hegel until they were 
broken into opposite parties by the 
publication of Strauss's book. Of late 



years the denial of such adaptation 
marked a man's place on the extreme 
left, or destructive side. 

% In fact the overthrow of the older 
Rationalism in Germany, which ex- 
actly corresponded with English 
Deism, is claimed as the great work of 
the system in which Ideology origi- 
nated. See Schwartz, Zur Geschichte 
der neuesten Theologie, p. 95. 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



137 



Still the old sceptic lias some stubborn facts on his side which 
are wholly inexplicable on the opposite system. There is the 
fact that, since the first promulgation of Christianity, multitudes 
have rejected, myriads misunderstand, or are utterly unable to 
realize its distinctive doctrines, — those, for instance, which the 
most thoughtful idealists regard with admiration. This is surely 
incompatible with the theory that the human mind could of 
itself have originated or developed the doctrines, or that it 
should, consciously or unconsciously, have distorted historical 
events so as to represent them in a concrete form. Those 
doctrines jar too harshly with the mind in its natural state, 
excite man's fears too painfully, to admit the supposition that 
they could be the spontaneous product of human consciousness. 
Under certain conditions, it is true that they find an echo in the 
conscience, and give an intelligible solution to many dark 
problems of the universe : but the very first of those conditions 
is a subjective change of which neither sceptic nor ideologist 
can give any probable account. The religion which involves 
those doctrines, which speaks of a futurity of retribution, which 
contradicts the most widely spread prejudices, and sets up an 
exemplar utterly unlike the heroes and deities of all nations, is 
one which certainly could not have been devised or anticipated 
by man. Thus scepticism by the very fact of its prevalence 
overthrows the position of the ideologist : while the objections 
and contradictions of both find at once their explanation and 
their refutation in that position which we hold, not only as a 
matter of faith, but of experience. Christian truth, and the 
facts of revelation by which it is represented, are in accordance 
with the fundamental principles of human reason and conscience ; 
yet they are only accepted by man when those principles are 
themselves distinctly recognized, — that is, when both reason and 
conscience are raised out of the state of corruption and degrada- 
tion into which they had unquestionably sunk when Christianity 
was first promulgated. The accordance removes all a priori moral 
objections to the consideration of the evidence by which those 
truths and facts are attested, while the actual repugnance of so 
large a portion of mankind to admit the doctrine is absolutely 
fatal to the theory of its origination in human consciousness, 
apart from an external supernatural impulse. 

5. This argument is not to be set aside as a mere logomachy, an 



138 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



attempt to neutralize conflicting opinions. It is but one instance 
among many, of the way in which truth is elicited by the 
collision of opposite errors. Our object, however, is not so 
much to confute as to convince, certainly not to exasperate, 
conscientious opponents ; and this object may perhaps be 
better attained by an inquiry how the contemplation of 
Christianity, being a perfect realization of a perfect ideal, could 
have suggested to any one such a theory as that which is 
presented to us by ideologists. 

6. In some sense all philosophers admit that the outward world 
is the result and representation of the invisible. According to 
materialists all phenomena are the products and exhibition 
of self-sustaining and self-evolving powers which pervade all 
nature — that is, of invisible forces known only by their effects. 
According to Theists the whole universe is the product and 
manifestation of a creating, preserving, and ruling will. The 
events of history are in a special sense manifestations of the law 
winch that will imposes upon the development of the human 
race. The law itself is discoverable to a certain extent by reflec- 
tion upon those events ; Christians believe that it is revealed 
fully in the sacred writings. All facts indeed are in some sense 
the concrete results and expression of some absolute principle, 
some unseen power, some general law.* There is in reality 
no such thing as a dead matter of fact, no chance, no casual 
occurrence, in the history of the world. Joined one to the other in 
an unbroken series of cause and effect, every fact, every event finds 
its necessary place in the universal order ; each is a link in that 
chain, which according to materialists had no beginning and 
will have no end, which according to Theists is fastened by each 
extremity to the throne of Grod. Christians accept the state- 
ment that all existences are the result of universal law, but 
they hold that law to be the expression of a supreme intellect 
and infinite love: deriving its force solely from the will of 
God. 

7. Here we stand on a platform on which, whether agreed or 



* This truth is recognized quite as I be any such thing as chance ; and con- 
distinctly by Butler and all other great | elude that the things which have this 
champions of Revelation as by its appearance are the results of general 
strongest opponents. " All reasonable I laws, and may be reduced into them." 
men know certainly that there cannot i Analogy, ii. c. iv. § 3. 



Ess AT IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCEIPTIOX. 



139 



not, we can at least understand our relative positions. We may 
advance a stage farther, and that brings us to the real issue. It 
may be true, that in a general survey of history, principles of 
law and order are discernible ; but it is certain that the diffi- 
culty is great, if not insuperable, when we seek to ascertain the 
operations of those principles in individual cases,* when we would 
apply them to account for events recorded by secular historians. 
When thought sweeps over a wide expanse, it is confused by the 
multiplicity of apparently abnormal and contradictory phaa- 
nomena — 

4 ' It is most hard, with an untroubled ear, 
Those dark inwoven harmonies to hear." 

Certain personages stand forth from time to time, in grand 
critical epochs of the world's development, as representative 
men, but seldom, if ever, are they adequate representatives of 
high, never of the highest principles.! Striking indications are 
given of an unseen presence by which all processes are guided, 
and of ends which all subordinate occurrences subserve. But 
over the whole there is a mist, sometimes broken, sometimes 
seeming to transmit light from a higher sphere, but for the most 
part dense and impenetrable. Aberrations and inconsistencies, 
contradictions and divergencies, confound the philosophic reader 
of history, in the attempt to arrive at a distinct perception of 
the general principles, the universal laws, which underlie and 
govern the complicated series of external events. 

One unquestionable result of this fact requires special atten- 
tion. The discrepancy between events as they occur in secular 
history, and the absolute ideas or principles which all events 
rightly understood exemplify and represent, is in point of fact 
so far recognized by the human mind, that whenever we read a 
narrative, in which the ideal and real are presented in perfect 



* Thus Butler, 1. c. : "It is but an 
exceeding little way, and in but few 
respects, that we can trace up the na- 
tural course of things before us to 
general laws." Mr. Jowett has said, in 
an essay of most melancholy tendency, 
" In the study of ethnology, or geology, 
in the records of our own or past times 
a curtain drops over the Divine pre- 
sence."— On the Epistles of St. Paul, 



vol. ii., p. 433, 2nd edition. 

t This position and its bearings upon 
Ideologists were discussed with great 
ability and persuasiveness by Ullmann 
in the ' Studien und Kritiken,' 1838, 
No. 3. This treatise, which was after- 
wards reprinted with the title 'His- 
torisch oder Mythisch,' induced Strauss 
himself to modify the conclusion of his 
' Leben Jesu.' 



140 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



accordance, we are all but irresistibly impressed with, the con- 
viction that it must be fictitious. Fiction, as Aristotle long 
since taught, is more catholic than reality ; that is, it is a more 
obvious and perfect exemplification of general principles. A 
perfectly good, an entirely consistent man, a life in which all 
events should be so ordered as to harmonize with our ideas of 
fitness and justice, a series of events in which the moral 
government of the Supreme Being should be outwardly and de- 
monstrably exemplified, would seem to us from a purely secular 
point of view a sheer impossibility. The Hegelian is right, so 
far as ordinary men and ordinary events are concerned, in his 
theory that the ideal is ever striving for realization, but that it 
never is realized. That is an old truth which our own Hooker 
has stated in terms at once more simple and accurate — " All 
things besides, God excepted, are somewhat in possibility which 
as yet they are not in act." * The map of a country drawn in 
outlines of geometrical symmetry, a narrative in which all 
events are the development of some great principle and conduce 
to some one intelligible result, alike produce the impression of 
unreality. We do not see such tilings. They are contrary to 
experience. Scarcely any amount of external evidence would 
satisfy us of their truth. 

It is just at this point that the controversy between the 
Christian and the Ideologist arises. The question is simply 
this : are the same principles applicable to secular history and 
to the records of a scheme which is professedly one of divine 
interpositions ? f We see perfectly well that if they were ap- 
plicable, the conclusions of the ideologist could scarcely be 
controverted. To one who does not view the sacred narrative as 
a thing apart, not merely in certain details, but in its entire 
construction, resting altogether upon different principles from 
those which he is accustomed to apply in historical investiga- 
tions, its facts, whether or not what is commonly called 
miraculous, have prima facie this characteristic of fiction. The 
long series of events recorded in the Bible, connected for ages 
with one family, but involving in its consequences all the 
destinies of mankind, unquestionably exemplifies certain ideal 
principles, and that throughout and completely, in its organic 



* E. P. i. 5. 



t See, for instance, Strauss's ' Leben Jesu,' Einleitung, § 8. 



Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



141 



structure and in its several parts. In the opinion of one 
who dismisses, without argument, all notions of supernatural 
intervention, such a fact is unaccountable, excepting upon 
the supposition that the history has been invented or essen- 
tially changed in character by the writers who have trans- 
mitted the traditional records in their actual state. Whether 
he attribute this to design, to the influence of high or low 
feelings, to superstition, ignorance, prejudice, or, on the other 
hand, to noble and generous aspirations, may be admitted to 
be a matter of considerable import so far as regards his own 
spiritual state ; * but the result is alike destructive so far as 
regards the bearings of the argument upon the substantial 
verity of the Scriptures. The more solemn and majestic the 
events, the more completely in the ideologist's mind do they 
bear the essential character of a myth. In no portion of Holy 
Writ is such criticism more destructive than in that which 
presents to us the life of our Lord — that perfect embodiment of 
an ideal, in itself without a parallel, in its realization transcend- 
ing all conceptions of the human mind, j 

9. We thus account for the position of the ideologist, and in 
accounting for it we seem to gain a singularly distinct perception 
of what is surely the most positive and peculiar characteristic of 
Christianity. The attributes, the very nature of God, are 
manifested in the government of the world, viewed by the light 
of Scripture, but most specially and completely in the Person 
and works of the Son. Just in this point consists the real 
contrast between sacred and profane history. Profane history 
may not, and indeed it cannot contradict, but it certainly does 
not distinctly teach, some of the most momentous and necessary 
truths — such as the unity of God, the unity of the human race, 
the unity of human history, the universal principles of morality, 
or the systematic development of the purposes of an almighty 
and loving will. Historians, excepting so far as they have 
drawn light from other sources, do not in point of fact distinctly 



* All these influences are adopted 
by Strauss, as acting in co-ordination 
with the philosophical mythus, that 
■which clothes in the garb of his- 
torical narrative a simple thought, a 
precept or idea of the time. L. J., 
Einleitung, § 8. 



t Thus even Grotz, quoted in the 
4 Westminster Review,' July 1861. 
Strauss speaks scarcely less strongly of 
the marvellous and unrivalled beauty 
of the conception. See his answer to 
Ullmann, ' Verg'angliches und Bleiben.' 
1839. 



142 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



set forth all or any of these truths. Sacred history teaches 
them all, and teaches them not by mere abstractions, but by the 
representation of events in which our conceptions of what is 
right, reasonable, and desirable, find a perfect satisfaction. 
Our only postulate is one which cannot be denied on rational 
grounds by any but atheists* — that God has the will and the 
power of making Himself known to His creatures. That granted, 
the reasonableness and therefore the probability of such a 
manifestation of Himself can scarcely be denied. The intellect 
freed from the shackles of sin and knowledge falsely so called, 
fastens with joy upon the one clue to the labyrinthine mazes of 
speculation. Holding it a priori to be possible that the Divine 
love may choose thus to deliver us from dark and dreary be- 
wilderment, we gladly accept the proofs that such has been His 
gracious will. We believe that in another state the ideal will 
be thoroughly and universally realized, that each act and each 
existence, in its place and its degree, will be then a perfect 
exemplification of some eternal reality ; and of this we are equally 
convinced, that a foretaste and anticipation of that future har- 
mony has been vouchsafed in the Scriptural narrative, most 
especially in the life and person of J esus Christ. 

10. It is a strange and instructive contrast which is thus pre- 
sented between the effects of the Scriptural narrative upon the 
ideologist and upon the simple-hearted Christian. The traces of 
harmonious accordance impress the former with the conviction 
that he is listening to the record of a dream — beautiful it may 
be, and significant, — the dream of a poet or a saint, of a spirit 
full of divine yearnings and sympathies, but still a dream — 
an empty, unsubstantial dream. The Christian sees in that 
accordance the evidence of a divine power ; of all effects upon 
his mind the very last would be a doubt as to the reality of the 
objective facts which show how that power has been exerted 
for the regeneration of man. 

11. This is a strong position to occupy, a secure resting-place 



* Including all schools of Pantheism 
which deny the consciousness of God, 
and moreover those Deists who main- 
tain the absolute necessity of all mani- 
festations of the Divine nature in the 
world — who make the world, so to 
speak, the complete manifestation and 



body of the Deity. Such are J. H. 
Fichte, and C. H. Weisse, Schwartz, 
&c, in Germany ; F. Newman (if, in- 
deed, he recognizes at present any per- 
sonal consciousness in God), and many 
others, in England. 



Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AKD SUBSCKIPTION. 



143 



for the spirit. We may profitably dwell somewhat in detail upon 
the thoughts which it suggests. Every fact in the life of our 
Master is in accordance with a spiritual principle which it actually 
and completely represents. Man, conscious of inherent weakness, 
longs for union with God. In the incarnation, God and man be- 
come one. Man feels himself exposed to a strange fascination which 
attracts him towards evil and draws him away from God. In 
Christ he meets, baffles, and overcomes, the personal agent of all 
temptation. Man feels that he is a slave to nature, over which 
a sure instinct tells him that he was destined to rule. In Christ 
he exercises that dominion, making all physical forces subser- 
vient to his will. Man fears disease, affliction, and bereavement. 
In Christ all sorrows become medicinal, and conduce to the per- 
fection of our renewed nature. Man has two great foes — sin, and 
death the penalty of sin. Christ crushes sin, and expels it 
from His dominions ; death He converts into the last best friend, 
the opener of the portals of eternal life. Moved by the Spirit 
of God, the mind of man from age to age has uttered aspirations, 
more or less imperfectly comprehended, for a Saviour, a righteous 
Lord, a manifestation of God in a living human Person. One 
by one the characteristics of such a Person were traced by the 
spirit of prophecy : all the conditions of that manifestation, the 
object of His coming, the time, the circumstances, the various 
signs by which He might be recognized, were clearly predicted ; 
those predictions were graven upon the hearts of the Israelites, 
and were even partially known to the Gentiles.* In Jesus, by 
a combination of circumstances which seemed fortuitous, and, so 
far as human agents were concerned, beyond all question were 
undesigned, those predictions were fulfilled, apparent contradic- 
tions were reconciled ; and, in a higher sense than the most gifted 
seers had imagined, those characteristics were exemplified. We 
see in Jesus perfect man, the one normal, ideal man, the 
one representative of the type which was in the thought 
of God when He moulded the frame of Adam, and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life.f In personal union 



* Strauss adopts the view that the 
whole life of Jesus, all that He should 
or would do, had an ideal existence in 
the Jewish mind long before His birth. 
Einleitung, § 11. 



t This thought, as might be ex- 
pected, is worked out very thoroughly 
by the best divines of modern Ger- 
many ; but it belongs to the old schools 
of Hebrew exegesis, or, to speak more 



144 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



with that perfect man we are taught to discern the living 
Word, the Son of God. If the whole structure of our religion 
be not a baseless vision, if all our hopes be not a miserable 
delusion, it is true, simply and absolutely true, that in that 
Person the perfect ideal is perfectly real. We expect, there- 
fore, to find — in fact we should be confounded if we did not 
find — in the history of the God-man* just that harmony, unity, 
and complete interpenetration of all that is good and beautiful in 
abstract principles, that perfect representation of inward spiritual 
truths, of which genius has dreamed, but which it has vainly 
striven to realize. We feel that such a history must be sacra- 
mental. And thus, in the very facts which create distrust in the 
ideologist, we find the strongest confirmation of our faith. We are 
entitled to say to him — You cannot surely be so unreasonable 
as to call upon us to give up any part of what you must admit 
to be a consistent and complete realization of that which you 
profess to recognise as good and beautiful, simply on the ground 
that it is too good, too beautiful, to be true.j We have, as you 
must confess, full access to the ideal sphere in which the soul 
may expatiate with delight. You cannot wish us to pass over to 
you, with nothing to gain, with so much to lose, even in your 
opinion, in our own not less than all. You offer us, in fact, nothing 
but the substitution of moral and intellectual speculations of 
the most bewildering character, in place of difficulties which a 
simple faith enables a sound reason practically to overcome. We, 
on the contrary, have every motive to call on you to pass over 
to our side : what you have to sacrifice is a mere notion, a novel 
one even in the schools of philosophy, as to the incredibility of 
an external and perfect manifestation of the divine. What you 
have to gain is the realization of the dearest and deepest hopes 



correctly, underlies all the Biblical in- 
timations of the future Messiah's per- 
son and work. (See the account of the 
Adam Cadmon in Dorner's 4 Einleitung 
to his Christology.') It is not sur- 
prising, when we consider the immense 
importance of the principle, that the 
followers of opposite and conflicting 
systems of philosophy should have 
claimed it for their own leaders. The 
Hegelians were especially anxious to 



prove that in its philosophic form the 
truth was recognized and taught by 
Hegel. See Goschel, Von Gott, dem 
Menschen und dem Gottmenschen. 

* dedvOpco-iros, a most pregnant term, 
used very frequently by the Greek 
Fathers. 

f Strauss, speaking of the theory in 
the very imperfect form which was 
given to it by Schleiermacher, calls it a 
beautiful effort of thought. 



Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCKIPTION. 145 



of humanity — hopes which nothing short of such a realization 
can satisfy and fulfil. 

12. It would be a good thing if our countrymen, and especially 
our younger countrymen, would distinctly contemplate the alter- 
native which they must in consistency adopt when the claims of 
the Scriptural narrative are confronted with ideologists. We 
may owe something even to the fearless speculators who, obscure 
and perplexing as their writings are in other respects, have at 
least brought this question to a definite issue. For young men 
of active and liberal spirits (indeed, for all who venture into the 
region of speculative inquiry, for those more especially who hang- 
about its outskirts) the chief danger is that they may adopt 
opinions which are intrinsically antagonistic to truth, without 
any suspicion of their tendencies and necessary results. It is 
well that such tendencies are at any rate brought out distinctly. 
Some few may possibly accept the conclusions to which the 
speculations lead : but even for them it may be better that they 
should arrive rapidly at the end, and find by experience its bar- 
renness and emptiness. The recoil from the dreary void of scep- 
tical negation has been to some, and those no ignoble spirits, the 
first movement towards the recovery of truth. But the great 
majority of Englishmen are extremely unlikely, even for a 
season, to find any resting-place in a system which makes the 
deepest and most practical convictions dependent upon meta- 
physical abstractions, depriving them of the foundation of positive 
objective facts* Once assured that ideology simply means 
denial of the veracity of the writers who bear witness to mi- 
raculous facts — of the truth of the whole, or of any considerable 



* Such, too, was the state of feel- 
ing in Germany. A writer, whose 
bias is utterly opposed to orthodoxy, 
declares truly that the orthodox reac- 
tion originated among men connected 
with public life— leaders of the pa- 
triotic outburst— that the religious sys- 
tems of the Berlin schools were too 
spiritualistic, too thin and fine drawn, 
too sentimental and indefinite to pro- 
duce practical results. What men 
wanted was a right massive, sturdy, 
popular Christianity, such as Luther 
preached. " In truth there was a deep 
chasm between the new intellectual 
character (Geistesbildung) presented by 



the leaders in philosophy and poetry, 
and the wants of the people." See 
Schwartz, ' Zur Geschichte der neuesten 
Theologie,' p. 67. The whole chapter 
is instructive, as showing the utter un- 
fitness of Bationalism in any of its 
forms, Idealism included, to act on the 
moral and spiritual life of the people — 
that is, to do the special and peculiar 
work of Christianity. A form of religion 
which admits that incapacity stands 
self-condemned. The arguments of 
Origen against Celsus are particularly 
worthy of consideration in their bear- 
ings upon this question. See lib. vi. 2, 
and vii. 59, 60. 



L 



148 



'aids to faith. 



[Essay IV. 



portion of the book, in which it nevertheless recognizes utterances 
of a divine spirit, they will turn aside in contempt from what 
must seem to them a suicidal inconsistency. One great charac- 
teristic of Englishmen — the characteristic, in fact, on which they 
may justly rest then claims to a foremost (indeed, the foremost) 
position among the representative races of humanity — is the 
belief in, and the love of, positive objective truth. Once con- 
vinced of the untruthfulness of a writer, no ingenuity of reason- 
ing, no fascination of style, no adaptation of his statements to 
their feelings or prejudices, will induce them to listen to his 
words. They may be slow to discern the symptoms of untruth- 
fulness, may be deceived and misled, but they will have but 
one short word to designate what they are once convinced has 
no foundation in fact. The very last position which they will 
admit as possible, or tolerate as defensible, is, that truths of in- 
finite import should have been transmitted from the divine to 
the human intelligence by unveracious witnesses, or through the 
medium of events distorted by enthusiasts. The Englishman 
may be narrow-minded or prejudiced, unapt to deal with abstract 
speculations ; but he has at least had this training, — he has been 
accustomed to weigh evidence, to seek for matter of fact truth 
in the first place, and to satisfy himself as to the good faith and 
correct information of those from whom he expects to receive 
knowledge or instruction. One thing with him is fixed and certain ; 
whatever else may be doubtful, this at least is sure — a narrative 
purporting to be one of positive facts, which is wholly or in any 
essential or considerable portion untrue, can have no connection 
with the Divine, and cannot have any beneficial influence upon 
mankind. As for the doctrines which are based upon it, or in- 
separably bound up with it, they must have their origin in an- 
other region than that of light. He will not allow himself to 
be entangled in the mazes of speculation. Without troubling 
himself as to the direction in which they may lead him, he will 
stop at the threshold : he will say — Before I go one step 
further, let me know what you say to our Lord's miracles — 
to the miracle of miracles, the Kesurrection. Is it a fact or 
not ? As for the doctrine which, as you say, it may represent, 
we may inquire about that hereafter ; but let us first know on 
what we stand — on the shifting quicksands of opinion, or on the 
solid ground of positive objective fact. 



Essay IY.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



147 



13. It may be said that it is unfair to press a man, and by urging 
the consequences of his opinions, to drive him from a position 
in which even for a time he may find refuge from utter unbelief. 
This consideration would undoubtedly have great weight if the 
question regarded only the speculative inquirer. Charity cannot 
be carried too far in judging any man's motives, in bearing with his 
perplexities, and putting the most favourable construction upon 
his words : but when a man propounds his opinions publicly, works 
them up into an elaborate system, and commends them by all 
the graces and artifices of rhetoric, his object is evidently not so 
much to satisfy his own mind, as to influence the minds of 
others ; and for their sake it is necessary to ascertain his 
meaning, and to show clearly the principles upon which his 
system rests, and the consequences which it involves. Above all, 
is this our duty when those principles are introduced rather by 
insinuation than by direct assertion, and are directly connected 
with .the recommendation of disingenuous acts, by which the 
safeguards of religion are undermined. We consider it a fortu- 
nate circumstance that, on the first appearance of ideology, so 
much of its true character has been disclosed. In order, how- 
ever, thoroughly to comprehend its bearings, and to prove its 
internal and necessary connection with the ultimate principles 
of unbelief, it will be expedient to give some account of its ori- 
gination and development in Germany. Some of the facts which 
follow are unknown to the generality of English readers ; they 
certainly ought to be known by all who feel interested in the 
progress and tendencies of nationalism in its most ingenious and 
subtle form. 

14. It has been already stated that ideology was first presented 
as a distinct and complete system in the writings of Strauss. His 
Life of Jesus is universally recognized as the beginning of a 
new epoch in theological speculations. The writer himseK has 
lately asserted, with characteristic arrogance, that no work of 
any importance has since been written upon any portion of the 
evangelical narrative without reference to his book. The vaunt, 
as we shall see, is not an empty one. That work did concentrate 
and systematize all that infidelity had previously advanced or 
suggested against the credibility of the Gospels and the whole 
system of Christianity as an objective revelation. The destruc- 
tive criticism of rationalists, and the mysticism of Hegel, were 

l 2 



148 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IY. 



brought together ; that to discredit the facts of revelation, this to 
supply a new foundation for the speculations which Strauss pro- 
poses as the substitute for historical Christianity. 

15. By education and circumstances, and also, it must be ad- 
mitted, by some rare and eminent gifts, Strauss was qualified for 
the position he assumed. He was brought up at Tubingen, an 
university which, in its retention of ancient forms of discipline, 
still bears more resemblance to Oxford than to any institution 
in Germany ; and, when he was a student, it was justly regarded 
as the stronghold of Lutheran orthodoxy. Among others less 
widely known, but sound in the faith, — such as Storr, Flatt, and 
Steudel, — Tubingen boasts of the great name of Bengel. In 
that school Strauss learned somewhat of the nature of the prin- 
ciples which he was to attack. Under F. C. Baur, since known 
as the most subtle and learned of neologians, but whose tenden- 
cies were then scarcely suspected, he acquired the habit of scep- 
tical investigation, and imbibed a rooted antipathy to what the 
Germans call " supernaturalism " — that is, the recognition of a 
miraculous element in religion. Free from any taint of sensuality, 
he bore a high character, to which his influence among the 
students and professors may in part be attributed. On the other 
hand, utterly indifferent to the tendencies or results of his in- 
quiries, singularly devoid of geniality or sympathy, he evinced 
on all occasions a supercilious disregard for feelings which he 
might wound, combined with a total absence of reverence for 
the divine. His intellect was keen and clear ; his natural apti- 
tude for dialectical subtleties was developed by intense applica- 
tion : he had also a power, not common in any country, and 
extremely rare in his own, that of presenting the results of his 
labours in an intelligible and interesting form, with the advan- 
tages of artistic arrangement and a perspicuous style. 

16. In the year 1831, Strauss, until then a Kepetent or assistant 
tutor at Tubingen, went to Berlin, at that time the centre of all 
speculative movements in theology and philosophy. Schleier- 
macher stood at the head. Few men have ever exercised a wider 
or more powerful influence. His vast learning and vigorous 
intellect ; his lively and persuasive eloquence ; above all, his 
peculiar mode of inculcating religious principles, attracted many 
of the noblest and most powerful minds. The characteristic of his 
system was the prominence which he gave to religious feeling — 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



U9 



subjective feeling was to him and the most influential of his fol- 
lowers the one test both of the importance and reality of spi- 
ritual truths : and to his teaching may be traced that aversion to 
what is called dogmatism, which distinguishes many of our own 
writers who, without adopting all his views, have passed through 
his school. His influence over Strauss, however, depended upon 
other qualities. Schleiermacher combined with a peculiarly 
genial and winning sweetness of character, and with a dreamy 
but graceful and attractive sentimentalism, a no less remarkable 
talent for sarcastic and reckless criticism. No man was more 
acute in detecting flaws, none more unscrupulous in exposing 
what he deemed to be inconsistencies. None had hitherto gone 
so far in discrediting large portions of the Scriptural narrative, 
or in assailing the authenticity of canonical books.* When Strauss 
came to Berlin, Schleiermacher had been giving a course of 
lectures on the life of Jesus, which are characterized by a friendly 
critic as full of acute combinations and destructive scepticism. 
Those lectures were, indeed, the chief attraction which drew him 
thither, t They gave the strongest impulse to his own work of 
demolition. 



* This statement may seem too 
harsh. Schwartz, however, a critic 
who has the greatest admiration and 
even reverence for Schleiermacher, 
observes that the critical processes by 
which Strauss attempted to overthrow 
the sacred history were learned in the 
school of Schleiermacher. " Originating 
with Semler and Eichhorn, they had 
been developed in rationalistic circles, 
and reached their highest point in the 
labours of De Wette, Schleiermacher, 
and Gieseler." Zur Geschichte der 
neuesten Theologie, p. 33. A most 
important statement for the young 
student of German theology. Gieseler 
himself gives the following account of 
that great man's principles : — "Schleier- 
macher went very far in his concessions 
to modern opinion. He admitted that 
the piety of a Pantheist might be iden- 
tical with that of a Monotheist, and 
reconcileable even with Christianity. 
That piety, moreover, could coexist 
with the theory which, denying the 
continuance of personal existence, re- 
gards the common spirit of humanity as 
the source of individual souls, the true 
living unity, of which alone eternity 
and immortality can be predicated ; in- 
dividual souls being its transitory 



actions, or manifestations. For the 
Christian as such there is no guarantee 
for personal duration, save that which 
is found in the belief of the eternal 
union of the Divine Essence with the 
human nature in Christ. The his- 
torical connection of Christianity with 
Judaism is external, precisely the same 
as with heathenism — hence he assigns 
to the Old Testament no normal au- 
thority. Angels are creatures of the 
imagination — in the idea of the devil 
he finds an internal contradiction — but 
he consents to retain angels and devils 
for liturgical use. The resurrection of 
the body and the last judgment are to 
be understood not as positive truths, 
but as the outward representations of 
general truths. Eternal damnation is 
rejected as inconceivable." — Kirchenge- 
schichte der neuesten Zeit., p. 240. 

t See Schwartz, 1. c. Strauss himself 
says that he procured the MS. of the 
lectures which had been given before 
his arrival. He points out the differ- 
ence between his own views and those 
of Schleiermacher, who wished to retain, 
by help of naturalistic interpretations, 
the substance of the Gospel narration. 
His statement is quite compatible with 
that of Schwartz. 



150 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



17. It was not, however, in the system of Schleiermacher that 
Strauss found the true key to his own position. He was abun- 
dantly supplied with weapons for attack. Eationalists and senti- 
mentalists had undermined the outworks of revelation : but he 
saw plainly that something more and something different was 
needed to account for the origin of Christianity ; and it was per- 
fectly clear to him that the battered and disfigured fabric of what 
he regarded as mere superstition could not be demolished and 
swept away, unless it were displaced by a system better calculated 
to meet the requirements of the human mind. 

It seems strange that he should have fixed upon Hegelianism 
for that purpose ; for Hegel, then in the full noontide of his in- 
fluence, was regarded as the bulwark of orthodox conservatism 
both in church and state. The fundamental doctrines of reli- 
gion, the dogmatic forms of the church, even the most abstruse 
and difficult speculations of theologians and schoolmen, were at 
that very time maintained by professors of the school of Hegel, 
who were recognized by him as faithful and intelligent expositors 
of his views. It was believed that he had effected a real and per- 
manent reconciliation between philosophy and religion. Faith and 
knowledge henceforth were to work together in perfect harmony ; 
all apparent contradictions were to be absorbed ; all perplexing- 
problems to find a solution in the higher sphere of metaphysical 
abstraction. A new system of optimism was founded, which 
acknowledged the State not merely as a necessary organization, 
but as the highest realization of the ideal of society, and rejected 
all factious and democratic tendencies as pernicious errors ; while, 
in their ecclesiastical tendencies, Hegel's principles seemed rather 
to verge towards Komanism than towards the dissolution of all 
formal authority, which appeared imminent as a development of 
infidelity under the thin disguise of rational Protestantism. 
He was, in fact, by taste, habits, and disposition, a conserva- 
tive, both as regarded the outward framework of church and 
state, and the dogmatic representation of religious truths. It 
may seem strange ; but it was a proof of the clear insight and 
vigorous intellect of Strauss, that in the fundamental prin- 
ciples of that philosopher's system, he discerned the motive 
power which he required to overthrow all which it appeared 
to accept so unreservedly and to defend with unprecedented 
success. 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AM) SUBSCBIPTION. 



151 



We can scarcely hope, and will not attempt, to state those 
principles in a clear or even intelligible form ; but some of the 
results, as Strauss apprehended and applied them, are practical 
enough. His exposition, moreover, has been justified both by 
the adhesion of a considerable number of those who were once 
the stanchest maintainors of their master's orthodoxy, and by the 
ultimate overthrow of the system itself, which is now, in the form, 
which Hegel gave it, altogether a thing of the past.* Under 
the abstruse and cloudy statements of that philosopher,! Strauss 
saw clearly involved the positive denial of the personality of the 
Godhead, the assertion of the phenomenal and evanescent, the 
incomplete and inadequate character of all existences, the 
absorption of individuality ; in short, a complete system of pan- 
theism, more idealistic than any previous development, and at 
the same time more capable of explaining the events of history 
both profane and sacred. 

18. Strauss took some time to prepare a work in which he ap- 
plied these principles to the overthrow of Christianity. The ' Life 
of Jesus ' was published in 1835. It appeared at a period of out- 
ward calm ; there was a singular cessation just then of contro- 
versy, a general feeling of security. Hegel had been dead 
four years. He had departed, so to speak, in the odour of 



* M. Sclierer says — " H a fait faillite, 
et c'est le positivisme qui a pris la suite 
de ses affaires." And elsewhere — " Ce 
bulle de savon a creve depuis long- 
temps/' 

t Hegel taught that the universe is 
but a continuous evolution of an in- 
finite potentiality ; that the absolute 
is not found either in the ideal sub- 
stratum, which is not a positive exist- 
ence, or in matter of fact phenomena, 
which have no .permanent reality, but 
in a perpetual process of self-develop- 
ment. Whatever exists has a necessary 
but a merely transitory existence. 
The ideal is ever tending to realization, 
but is never perfectly, and cannot be 
permanently, realized. It was a ques- 
tion among his followers whether he 
regarded Christianity, in the Person of 
its Founder, as an exception from these 
sweeping conclusions — whether his sys- 
tem was compatible with Theism. It 
seems to me scarcely possible to recon- 
cile many statements in his first consi- 
derable work (the ' Phanomenologie 



des Geistes ') with belief in a personal 
God. It is certain that no Christian 
theologians now accept the applications 
| of his general principles to Christian 
I dogmas. Chalybseus admits the " com- 
! fortless results " of the whole system. 
I On the attempts of Marheineke and 
I Goschel, some valuable remarks may 
I be read in Gieselers ' Kirchenge- 
j schichte d. n. Z.,' p. 242. Strauss also 
! gives a clear account of the disputes 
\ between the scholars of Hegel in his 
i ' Glaubenslehre,' p. 520 ff. It is, how- 
: ever, certain that Hegel wished to 
I maintain religion — that he regarded 
! the establishment of Theism as the 
highest problem and work of philosophy, 
and utterly detested all sceptical and 
i destructive criticism, especially that of 
Schleiermacher — an aversion extending 
even to purely secular writers, as Nie- 
buhr. His last work, on the Philo- 
sophy of Keligion, is full of beautiful 
and devout aspirations : whether they 
are consistent with his philosophy or 
! not, is another question. 



152 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



orthodoxy. Marheineke, Daub, and Goschel were recognized 
as true expositors of his system, and as sound defenders of the 
faith. Schleiermacher, too, was gone. His followers claimed 
for him the merit of having destroyed the older forms of 
rationalism, which had sunk into utter contempt. Neander at 
Berlin, Tholuck at Halle, Steudel at Tubingen, and a host of 
theologians of various shades of opinion, ranging from ortho- 
doxy to neology, but animated for the most part by deep 
Christian sympathies, occupied the professorial chairs ; while a 
strong and united band of men, sound in the old Bible ortho- 
doxy, wrought more directly upon the popular mind through 
the pulpit. The effect of the publication of Strauss's book is 
indescribable. Friends and enemies cannot find words strong 
enough to express the consternation, the horror and indignation 
of all who retained a vestige of reverence for religion. An 
electric shock running through all bosoms, a trumpet sounding 
the signal for a conflict for life and death, an earthquake shaking 
the foundations of all human hopes ; such are the terms which 
historians use in speaking of the shock.* Our own time has 
lately had an example of the effect which is produced when men 
known only as able, industrious scholars, of unspotted character, 
and exemplary in all personal relations, come forward as the oppo- 
nents of truths which they are bound to uphold. The excite- 
ment and panic, if panic it can be called which brought hosts 
of combatants to the front of the battle, had then a further 
justification in the talents, unity of purpose, straightforward 
audacity of the author — in his thorough mastery of all the weapons 
of attack, in the coherence of his philosophical principles — 
principles, as we have shown already, accepted by multitudes of 
thoughtful men — above all in the state of the public mind, 
shaken by rationalism, distrustful of its guides, unable to com- 
prehend the position of the recognized defenders of religion, and 
tossed to and fro by conflicting systems of doctrine and inter- 
pretation. Strauss was at least a brave and open foe, showed 
his true colours, and nailed them to the mast, and met every 
attack manfully, — open as he certainly was to the imputation 



* Compare Schwartz, Zur Geschichte 
der neuesten Theologie, and M. E. 
Scherer, Revue des Deux Mondes, Feb. 
1861 ; and Gieseler. Strauss himself 



speaks with great exultation of the 
shrieks of believers. See the Introduc- 
tion to his second edition. 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



153 



of making a dishonest use of a position entrusted to him for 
the defence of Christianity. 

In that work Strauss had two distinct objects. The first was 
to set aside all supernatural events, to prove that the Divine did 
not manifest itself in the manner related, and that the actual 
occurrences were not divine.* The other was to set up a system 
in which all that Christianity attempts to accomplish should 
be disentangled from its imperfect form, and developed, by a 
philosophical process, from universal and permanent truths. 

In the first part of the work Strauss collected all the objections 
which a remorseless criticism had raised against the historical 
veracity of the sacred writers : he completed them, gave them a 
sharper point and keener edge, combined them in a systematic 
form, ^and reduced them to a fundamental thought.! De Wette 
had already laid down the position, that all men of cultivated 
minds rejected the miraculous narratives of the Bible, and that 
the only question was how to account for their origin.J Strauss 
addressed himself to that question. First laying down far more 
broadly the general position, that miracles are a priori incredible, 
on the ground that the workings of the Divine in the world 
proceed in accordance with fixed, unvarying, and universal laws, 
which utterly exclude the possibility of miracles, § he refers all 
accounts of supernatural interventions to one origin — that of 
Myths. Here again he adopts what sceptics or infidels had pre- 
viously suggested. Semler had applied to the account of 
Samson and Esther the saying of Heyne, that all the history 
and philosophy of primitive antiquity originated in myths. 
Yater, and .still more decidedly De Wette, had advocated the 
mythical interpretation of a large portion of the Old Testament | 
history. But, as Strauss complains, that system had been 



* Introduction, § 1. See also his 
Streitschriften, part iii., p. 59. He gives 
a full account of the original plan of 
his work (showing that the second part 
was that to which he attached most im- 
portance) in the treatise ' Verh'altniss 
der Hegel'schen Philosophie zur Kritik.' 

f Schwartz, 4 Zur Geschichte der 
neuesten Theologie,' p. 104. 

% That position was taken in the 
work which in Germany, some thirty 
years ago, was put into my hands as an 
introduction to the study of the Hebrew 



Scriptures. 

§ Strauss uses precisely the same 
language as Baden Powell. See his 
Introduction, vol. i. p. 71 of the Eng- 
lish translation. In p. 87, § 16, he 
gives the marks by which the unhis- 
torical character of a narrative may be 
a priori demonstrated — the principal is 
the impossibility of any arbitrary act of 
interposition by the absolute cause. 

|| Kritik der Mosaischen Geschichte, 
quoted by Strauss. Introduction, § 8. 



154 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



applied inconsistently and timidly even to the Old Testament, 
and had stood side by side with naturalistic interpretations, while 
few had ventured to bring it to bear upon any portion of the 
Gospel narrative. Yet even here the way had been prepared. 
Schleiermacher had not hesitated to call the history of the 
Temptation a myth. Gabler, and others of his school, held that 
all portions of the narrative which involve angelic appearances 
had the essential characteristics of myth. Some theologians 
had gone so far as to bring the details, first of the Nativity, and 
then of the Eesurrection, under the same category. The barriers 
had been thrown down, and all that remained for Strauss to do 
was to carry out the principle consistently into the whole 
structure of the New Testament. To use his own words: 
" Others had driven through the grand portal of myths into the 
evangelical history, and had passed out again by the same; 
but as for all the intermediate portions, they were contented to 
pursue the crooked and laborious paths of natural interpretation." 
He left himself no portion of our Lord's life untouched. He 
saw too clearly the internal coherence of all its parts ; he dis- 
cerned the unity of the principles which underlie all its pheno- 
mena : all or nothing must be admitted. Kejecting with disdain 
the subterfuges of rationalist and semi-rationalist, he would not, 
as he says, set up the authority of one Evangelist against 
another. The testimony of one is worth as much, or to speak 
more correctly, is worth as little as the others.* A helium om- 
nium contra omnes is waged; from beginning to end he finds 
no single spot of firm historical ground, scarcely any mixture of 
ascertainable fact, amid the legendary and mythical representa- 
tions.f 

Strauss enters, of course, fully into the investigation of myths, J 
which had already been classified under three heads ; the 



* Schwartz, Zur Geschichte, p. 110. 

t To allow time for such a transmu- 
tation of history, which, as all historians 
agree, is only possible in times when 
letters are unknown or unused, when 
events are transmitted by ignorance and 
superstition, Strauss was driven to the 
theory, that all the Gospel narratives 
were the product of the second century, 
a theory which is admitted universally, 
even by unchristian critics, to be irre- 



concileable with facts : with the failure 
of that theory the whole mythical system 
collapses. Dr. Arnold, who had not read 
the book, judging of it merely from a 
review, saw, of course, this point. " The 
idea of men writing mythic histories 
between the time of Livy and Tacitus, 
and St. Paul mistaking such for reali- 
ties 1" Life, ii. p. 58. 

% L. J., Introduction, p. 26. " j 



Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



155 



historical, which confound the natural and supernatural ; the 
philosophical, which clothe in the garb of historical narrative 
some thought or idea of the time ; and the poetical, in which the 
original idea is almost obscured by the veil which the fancy of 
the poet has woven around it. All these he holds to be blended 
in various proportions in the Gospel narrative — the great source 
of all the mythical embellishments being the prepossessions 
of the countrymen and followers of our Lord touching the 
person and works of the expected Messiah : the next source 
being that peculiar impression which was left by the personal 
character, actions, and fate of Jesus, and which served to 
modify the Messianic idea in the minds of the people. 

21. The residuum from this system is thus stated by one* who 
is far from an unfriendly critic. The myth has eaten into the 
very heart of the narrative. There remains but a scanty frame- 
work of the life of Jesus. That He was brought up in Nazareth, 
was baptized by John ; that He formed disciples, and taught in 
various districts of Palestine ; that He opposed everywhere the 
outwardness of pharisaism, and proclaimed the Messianic king- 
dom ; that at last He succumbed to the hatred and envy of the 
pharisaic faction! and died upon the Cross — such, according to 
Strauss, is the sum total of facts, which the ideas and aspirations 
of early Christendom enveloped in a tissue of significant legends 
and devout imaginings. Of the discourses of our Lord, a 
small solid kernel, as he thinks, can be discerned with cer- 
tainty. Such, for instance, is the Sermon on the Mount. 
The sayings of J esus, according to him, were so pregnant and 
forcible, had so strong a hold upon men's minds in their con- 
densed gnomic form, that they were preserved in great part 
even in the flood of oral tradition. Even this seems, upon 
second thoughts, too much for him to admit. Wrenched from 
their natural connection, dislodged from their original site, they 
remain like boulders, objects of vague wonder or superstitious 
legends, until their true origin and meaning are ascertained by 
philosophic ingenuity and research. 

22. And yet Strauss professes, and may be assumed actually to 



* Schwartz. See also Scherer, Kevue 
des Deux Mondes. 

+ Even this is a distortion of history. 
Caiaphas and his party were Sad- 



ducees ; a fact which later writers of 
the Tubingen school have found im- 
possible to reconcile with their theory 
of the origin of the Gospels. 



156 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



believe, that he retains the essential truths of Christianity. The 
last portion of his book, which he certainly regarded as the most 
important, is intended to draw out the eternal ideas which 
underlie this strange tissue of legend and myth. The super- 
natural nativity of Christ, His miracles, His resurrection and 
ascension, remain ideal truths — utterly separated as they are 
from objective facts. Christ, indeed, in His concrete personality, 
disappears from the system of the great teacher of Ideology. 
No individual does or can adequately represent, much less em- 
body, absolute realities. But the Church was guided by a true 
instinct when, in the Person of Jesus, she found an expression of 
those realities. In Him was manifested more perfectly than in 
any individual that which is the ultimate and substantial prin- 
ciple of all religion, the unity of God and man. It is actually 
startling to find how the versatile and imaginative intellect of 
Strauss* can discern the blessedness and sublimity, the en- 
couragement and consolation of the thoughts which the early 
Church derived from the orthodox view of Christ. Standing 
from without, he sees far more clearly than many who profess 
to believe the Gospel, the internal coherence of its highest 
doctrines. Only, as Strauss teaches, the true meaning of those 
doctrines remained to be discovered in the light of the philoso- 
phy of the Absolute.! That alone supplies the key to the whole 
system of Christology. Instead of an individual we have an 
idea. In an individual the properties and functions which the 
Church attributes to Christ contradict themselves : in the idea 
of the race they perfectly agree. Humanity is the union of the 
two natures — God become man ; it is the worker of miracles, 
the sinless existence ; for sin belongs to the individual, not to the 
race. It is Humanity that dies, rises, ascends into Heaven. By 
faith in this Christ, that is, in his own human nature, man is 
justified before God. 

23. Is this the last word of the system ? It seems to go far 
enough. Yet Strauss had more to say. In a later work, J 
he boldly clears away all remaining prejudices. The world 
is not merely one with God — an ever changing, ever pro- 



* See the concluding Dissertation, 
§ 145. 

t Concluding Dissertation, § 151, p. 
437, vol. iii. English translation. 



J The ' Dogmatik,' or ' Die Christ- 
liche Glaubenslehre/ published 1840, 
1841. 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCKIPTION. 



157 



gressing manifestation of the Divine, but God has Himself no 
personality, no conscious Being. Man had taken the throne of 
Christ. He seats himself ultimately in the throne of the Abso- 
lute, which first attains to consciousness, to personal existence, 
in humanity.* The individual is nothing — a mere phenomenal 
and transitional evolution; the absolute is nothing — a mere 
potentiality never realized or realizable. Empty abstraction 
swallows up all idea and fact, the Divine and human, in one 
universal void. 

Such is Ideology in the mind of its ablest, its most honest 
and consistent exponent. The storm produced by such a work 
may be conceived. All the leaders of German thought were in 
a tumult of excitement ; the first object of those, between whose 
systems and that of Strauss there appeared to be a logical con- 
nection, was to shake off the responsibility. Schleiermacher's 
friends first rushed to the rescue, and pointed out the absolute 
antagonism between the genial and loving spirit of their chief, 
and the reckless audacity, the irreverence, and bitterness of the 
intruder. Hegelians were, of course, vehement in disavowing the 
principles and the consequences. Yet, as we have seen, Strauss 
did but use the weapons which had been forged for him. He 
scarcely went further than De Wette, on the one hand, in historical 
scepticism, or differed from him only in the consistency and 
completeness of his application of the same critical principles. 
Strauss might even claim Schleiermacher's own authority for the 
denial of the possibility of miracles, although, by a glorious in- 
• consistency, that great man accepted as a Christian truth what 
he could find no place for in his philosophical system. On the 
other hand, so far as his application of the Hegelian theory was 
concerned, daringly blasphemous as he may seem, he was soon 
outstripped by even more reckless infidels. In fact, other 
symptoms-isoon removed all doubt as to the tendency of Hegelian 
forms of thought. Frederic Kichter, a bookseller of Breslau, 
had already published in 1833 — two years before the appearance 
of Strauss's ' Life of Jesus ' — a work in which he proclaimed a 
new Gospel, as he styled it, that of eternal death. t His argu- 



* " Gott is nicht Person, Er wird es 
in der unendlichen Keihe der men- 
schlichen Subjecte." See Schwartz, 
p. 218 ; and Strauss, Glaubenslehre, p. 



502-524. 

f Die Lehre von den letzten Dingen. 
Gieseler says that many Hegelians 
blamed Kichter not for the doctrine, 



158 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



raent, in the opinion of very competent judges, was a legitimate 
deduction from Hegel's theory of individuality, though the book 
and the author were overwhelmed in a general outburst of 
indignation. Later and more consistent professors of that 
school did not hesitate to call the condemnation of Eichter, 
coming as it did from Hegelians, a literary assassination. 
Again, one of the most thoroughgoing adherents of Hegel, 
Bruno Bauer, a writer who had made himself conspicuous 
by his heady arrogance in the cause of orthodoxy, now turning 
round with a sudden revulsion, poured forth a stream of 
writings, in which the facts and doctrines of Christianity were 
treated with a blasphemous insolence scarcely paralleled in 
modern days. The writings of Bauer and Eichter, however, 
were easily disavowed ; even the opponents of Hegel hesitated 
to make the calm conservative philosopher responsible for 
such results. 

25. Two years after the appearance of Strauss's work another 
application of Hegel's principles was developed, which, though 
far less startling and urged in a far different spirit, produced a 
deeper and more durable sensation on the Continent. E. Eothe, 
sub- director of the theological college at Wittenberg, published, 
in 1837, his treatise on the origin and constitution of the 
Christian Church. Eothe is in all respects a most remarkable 
man ; in originality and independence of thought he stands 
almost alone among German theologians ; his personal piety and 
hearty acceptance of the living truths of religion are undoubted.! 
Few of our own later writers have gone so far.— none have gone * 
farther, in defending, both by a priori arguments and historical 
evidence, the apostolical origin of Episcopacy, the unity and 
authority of the primitive Church. It seemed as though the 
conservatism of Hegel had found a perfect exponent. Yet, 
strange as it may appear, the conclusion at which he arrives, 



but for its publication, 11 for discovering a 
secret of the school." 'Kirchengeschiclite 
der n. Z.,' p. 245. 

* Now Professor at Heidelberg. His 
book is entitled ' Die Anfange der 
Christliclien Kirclie, und ihrer Verfas- 
sung.' 

t A very strong testimony is borne 
to his piety by Rudolf Stier in the in- I 



troduction to his new edition of the 
' Reden der Apostel,' 1861, p. viii. He 
says of him — " Dessen innerstes Glau- 
beusleben ich wohl kenne." In some 
points Rothe shows a strong tendency 
to Romanism, and speaks of Holder's 
' Symbolik ' in terms of almost unqua- 
lified eulogy. 



Essay IY\] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 159 



following out, as the keenest critics * admit, the principles of 
his master, is that the Christian Church is but a temporary 
institution destined to be absorbed by the State ;f in which, 
like all true Hegelians, { he sees no mere system of mutual 
defence, or institution in which the energies of individuals may 
be freely developed, but the highest product of reason, the 
supreme development of humanity, — in a word, the moral world 
realized and organized. The views of Kothe are altogether too 
subtle, and indeed too elevated, to reach the general mind in 
the form which he gave them : his State is an ideal one ; his 
hope of the realization of his theory depends upon his belief in 
a future personal manifestation of the Saviour ; but the necessary 
results of his reasoning were clearly discerned by thinking men, 
and practical inferences were readily drawn. He recognizes 
himself with calm satisfaction what he believes to be early and 
progressive symptoms of decline and disintegration in the Church, 
the steady progress of encroachments on the part of the 
State ; and, in connection with outward changes, an internal 
modification of opinions, feelings, and principles, tending to- 
wards a final identification of the secular and religious, the 
natural and the Divine. He does not hesitate to assert that 
the religious life itself must find its true and satisfactory 
realization, not in the Church but in the State. § Though 
resting on far other grounds, there is a remarkable resemblance 
between his theory as well as the arguments by which it is 
maintained, and that of our own Arnold. || The supremacy 



* For instance. E. Scherer in the 
' Revue des DeuxMondes,' p. 849, Feb. 
1861 ; and Schwartz, 4 Zur Geschichte 
der neuesten Theologie.' 

t " Der vollendete Staat schliesst die 
Kirche schlechthin aus." — 'Anfange/ 
p. 47. 

t See his note, p. 13, where he col- 
lects Hegel's definitions of the State. 
§ P. 51. 

|1 Dr. Arnold, of course, did not de- 
rive his opinions directly from Eothe, 
whose work he read in 1838. In a 
letter written that year to Chevalier 
Bunsen, he expresses his entire agree- 
ment with Eothe in his theory as to 
the identity of Church and State, but, 
as might be expected, rejects as entirely 
his conclusions touching the aposto- 
lical origin of episcopacy. See • Life," 



&c, ii. p. 105. It will be remembered 
that the Chevalier Bunsen, with whom 
Arnold says distinctly that he agrees 
more thoroughly than with any of his 
friends, was deeply imbued with Hegel's 
principles, and more especially with 
their application to the relations be- 
tween the Church and the State. There 
can be little doubt that he gave the 
first impulse to Arnold's mind upon 
this subject, or at least confirmed it in 
the direction which it took after the 
reaction from what he somewhere calls 
his Oxford Toryism. The numerous 
and peculiar coincidences between 
Arnold and his German prototypes can 
otherwise scarcely be accounted for. 
He learned German somewhat late in 
life. 



160 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



of the State in all matters, both of discipline and doctrine, 
is the rightful and legitimate development of Christianity ; 
it decides whatf shall be taught, and how it shall be taught ; 
and in the mean time it treats, and has a right to treat, the 
national Church as no less properly an organ of the national 
life than a magistracy or a legislative estate. 

27. The philosophy of ideology, thus consistently carried out 
by writers of very different feelings and principles, leaves man 
without a church, without a Saviour, without a living soul. 
There remained, however, still a sort of profession of religion, a 
religion of vague, dreary abstractions, but still, such as it was, 
an element in which philosophers might find some materials for 
the religious sentiment, while the common herd might be 
guided by the retention of the old doctrinal forms. That 
delusion was soon dissipated. Feuerbach took up the argument 
where Strauss left it, and drew from it the inevitable conclusion, 
that man himself is the only proper object for the reverence 
and the worship which had hitherto been directed to the idea 
of a God. Theology was thus converted to anthropology. 
Instead of loving God, men are to love one another. Sacra- 
ments will disappear, but then the true eucharist will be found 
in wholesome meals ; baptism, in the healthy use of cold baths ! 
Natural science will take the place of religious, moral, and 
metaphysical speculation. Atheism thus stood out in its bare- 
ness and barrenness — yet not even then in its utter hatefulness. 
It remained for a numerous school of philosophical radicals to 
get rid of the last vestiges of superstition. Feuerbach recognized 
the virtues of unselfishness, courage, truth ;* he was an admirer 
of the higher developments of genius, in science, literature, 
and art. He speaks of humanity as a real being. A whole 
host of writers soon sprang up who rejected all such delusions 
with utter contempt ; they saw clearly that they had no meaning 
disjoined from the religious element, and heaped upon him- 
self the contumelious epithets which he had unsparingly applied 
to his predecessors. The dogmas of socialism and communism 
were preached with the wildest fanaticism ;f poets, politicians, 



* This is too favourable a view. In 
his poems, which, like the ' Thalia ' of 
Arius, are intended to popularize his 
tenets, his cynicism is revolting. In his 



axioms he lays down the principle — 
Thy first duty is to do good to thyself. 

f See Schwartz, ' Zur Geschichte der 
neuesten Theologie,' p. 227, 240, 242. It 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



161 



socialists, and natural philosophers came forward to demand 
the extirpation of all faith, to denounce the belief in the 
invisible as the root of all human weakness and misery, to 
proclaim the sacred law of egotism — the religion of the flesh ; 
and for a time they seemed to have succeeded. They appealed 
to man's strongest passions ; they appealed also to some deep 
principles. It was felt that the religion preached by the pro- 
fessors of all schools tainted by rationalism or by ideology 
was a farce, a delusion, a fraud ; the materialists carried the 
day, took the lead in the revolutionary movement of 1848, 
and suddenly, to their own amazement, found themselves 
triumphant amidst the ruins of Church and State. 

27. A long and powerful reaction followed. Utterly worn out, 
unmasked, and confounded, ideology, together with the meta- 
physical speculations with which it was connected, sank into ob- 
scurity and contempt. The very last thing to be expected was 
that it should have been transplanted into a soil of all apparently 
the most uncongenial — that it should be offered to Englishmen 
as a useful help in the interpretation of the Scriptures. A very 
brief summary of points distinctly advanced, or undeniably sug- 
gested, by some of the latest advocates of the system in England 
will show the fundamental identity of principles between them and 
the German ideologists ; although we gladly admit that, whether 
withheld by reverence, or by fear of offending men of all shades 
of religious opinion, not to speak of legal penalties and disquali- 
fications, few among us have ventured to present the most offen- 
sive insinuations ; none have dared to apply the principles to 
the whole substance of the Scriptural narrative. 

28. The doctrine of personal annihilation, of the absorption of 
the individual consciousness in the infinite Spirit — a doctrine, be 
it noted, which is distinctly proclaimed among ourselves by Free- 
thinkers, and directly based upon Pantheism, or a spurious Theism 
— is not of course preached, nor is it likely to be preached, by any 
one who cares to obtain or retain a hold upon the attention of 
English Christians ; but it finds an echo, a partial expression, 



must be noted that Schwartz and 
Scherer (who takes precisely the same 
view — see ' Kevue des Deux Mondes,' 
Feb. 1861, p. 851) are ultra liberals. 
Schwartz names Herwegh, Huge, Marr, 
Voght, &c, as leaders in this new cru- 



sade. Gaspard Schmidt, better known 
by the assumed name of Stirner, was, 
perhaps, the most influential writer. 
Gieseler, 1. c, pp. 30 and 275, may be 
consulted. 



162 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



what sounds like a preparation. Divested of what is most repul- 
sive in form, the principle is insinuated, the way paved for its 
reception. Every attempt to get rid of the idea of individual 
responsibility, to exempt any considerable portion of mankind 
from the universal law of retribution, is a step, and a very de- 
cided step, towards the denial of the continuity of personal con- 
sciousness. A nearer approximation to the scepticism of the 
Ideologists could perhaps hardly be made than that which we 
find in the suggestion, that, after some possible state of new pro- 
bation for rudimentary spirits, for germinal souls — after the 
completion of the sublunary office of the Christian Church — all, 
both small and great, may find a refuge in the bosom of the 
universal Parent to kepose, or to be quickened into higher 
life* 

29. We have seen how nearly the theories of the Church coin- 
cide. As a function of the State, destined to be absorbed (and if 
such its destiny, surely the sooner the better) in that institution, 
it ought, of course, to concern itself exclusively with the ethical 
development of its members.t Kothe, indeed, looked for such 
absorption only when the State should be thoroughly penetrated 
with Christian doctrine, transformed and glorified by Christian 
principles — when its ideal should be realized under the govern- 
ment of its head. Taking lower, more matter of fact and prac- 
tical grounds — free, as it would almost seem, from the religious 
prepossessions which biassed the German thinker, English writers 
are found to advocate the immediate completion of the process. 
" Speculative doctrines" — that is, all dogmatic teaching — 
" should be left to philosophical schools." " The ministry of the 
Church is to be regarded simply as a function of the national 
life." Divested of its special doctrines, its creeds, and articles, 
and all peculiar manifestations of a divine life, the Church could 
of course be little or nothing more than an instrument for de- 



* See E. and E., p. 206 ; and com- 
pare Jowett on Eomans, vol. ii. p. 489. 

f There is a radical difference be- 
tween this theory and that of our Re- 
formers, as stated by Hooker. The 
latter proceeded on the assumption 
that the State accepts the doctrines 
taught by the Church. " How should 
the Church remain by personal subsist- 
ence divided from the Commonweal, 



when the whole Commonweal doth 
believe?" "The truth is that the 
Church and the Commonweal are 
names which import things really dif- 
ferent ; but those things are accidents, 
and such accidents as may, and always 
should, lovingly dwell together in one 
subject." — ' Ecclesiastical Polity,' Book 
viii. 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



163 



veloping the moral character of the nation.* We are distinctly told 
concerning " the doctrines of an isolated salvation, the reward, the 
grace bestowed on one's own labours, the undisturbed repose, the 
crown of glory, in which so many have, no share, the finality of 
the sentence on both sides — that reflections on such expectations 
as these may make stubborn martyrs, or sour professors, but not 
good citizens" t If so, these doctrines, which, invidiously as they 
are here stated, are, rightly understood, the very life of Christ- 
ianity, must be discountenanced ; even if for a time tolerated 
of the State, they must be discarded altogether, when it is 
once fully awakened to the consciousness of its true relations 
to the Church. 

30. Still clearer, less capable of being explained away or 
denied, is the agreement of the English ideologists with the fun- 
damental principles of their German teachers. Ideology proceeds 
from the a priori assumption that all miraculous interventions are 
impossible, since the Divine, whether conscious or unconscious, 
personal or impersonal, does not and cannot, without self-con- 
tradiction, violate its own laws. All the school in England more 
or less distinctly concur in the elimination of the supernatural 
element from Scripture. The least advanced represent it as a 
serious hindrance to the reception of Christian truth by men of 
cultivated intelligence. The German master adopted and gave 
a new and keener point to all detailed objections to narratives in- 
volving that element ; the same course is pursued in numerous 
passages of the ' Essays and Eeviews.' J 

With regard to myths, the special characteristic of ideology, 
one writer at least cannot be open to Strauss's charge of incon- 
sistency. He has not merely entered into the fields of Scriptural 
history through the portal of the myth and passed out again 
leaving the main facts untouched. § The incarnation of our Lord, 
His descent from David, the circumstances of His nativity, His 
temptation, transfiguration, His most remarkable miracles, in- 
cluding those attested by all the Evangelists, — nearly all, if not 
all, the grounds for an " historical faith " are referred substantially 
to " an ideal origin." As for the Old Testament, we are told that 



54. 



* E. and K., p. 196. 
f Here we seem to hear Rothe, p. 



+ E. and R., pp. 179, 180. See Arch- 
deacon Sinclair's Charge, 1861. 
§ E. and E., p. 202. 

M 2 



164 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



" previous to the time of the divided kingdom, J ewish history 
contains little that is thoroughly reliable." Its miraculous events 
may be taken as parable, poetry, legend, or allegory — that is, 
simply as myths. The G-erman saw plainly enough that in 
order to find time and place for the development of myths, the 
authenticity and genuineness of the historical records must be 
denied. He scarcely went farther than a writer who speaks 
coolly of " links deficient in the traditional record of events " 
which are related by St. Matthew and all the Evangelists. 

A crucial test of a man's feelings towards the Person of 
Christ Himself is undoubtedly supplied by his reception or denial 
of the Gospel of St. John. The early rationalists rejected it on 
the ground that it is inconsistent with the simpler, more accurate 
representations of Christ in the other Gospels. The modern 
neologians hold that it is the product of the higher development 
of the Christian consciousness in the post- Apostolic age. Accord- 
ing to the school of pantheistic rationalism, aptly and truly 
designated the modern gnosticism, the representation of the 
Saviour in that Gospel is too true, that is, too perfect an embo- 
diment of the ideal, to be historical. But of all hypotheses, the 
most offensive, the least supported by any shadow of evidence, 
is that which connects the origin of the Gospel with the gnostic 
heresy,* and brings down its date to the year 140. That hy- 
pothesis is noticed without an expression of indignation by one 
writer, who in his own name expressly asserts that there is no 
proof that St. John gives his voucher as an eye and ear witness 
of all that is related in his Gospel. Strauss demanded no more 
than this. Here is a ttov arco for the subversion of all positive evi- 
dence of historical Christianity. The mythical process has free 
play ; and it is only a question of time, of discretion in meddling 
with stubborn prejudices, how soon and how far the objective 
facts of an external positive revelation may be rejected, how 
the doctrines themselves may be remoulded, under the supreme 
and ultimate authority of the natural conscience, into accordance 
with the requirements of an enlightened age. 

31. The question of course arises — how is it possible that men 



* Thus Hilgenfeld. See a brief 
summary of opinions in Lange's Bibel- 
werk, iv. p. 20, an excellent work, 



which will meet the requirements of 
many students. 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



165 



of honour holding such opinions can retain, or endure, their 
position as ministers and teachers of a Church, which, liberal 
as it undoubtedly is in dealing with all questions about 
which believers in a positive revelation may conscientiously 
differ, has no less certainly pronounced a clear and decisive 
sentence upon each and all the points controverted or denied 
by Ideologists ? That the difficulty is felt is sufficiently ob- 
vious. The principal object of the only treatise in which the 
leading principles of this form of neology have been distinctly 
commended by a minister of the Church of England, is to justify 
the conduct of himself and those who maintain the same views. 
In this part of his undertaking he has been supplied with 
weapons from the same foreign armoury. In the writings of all 
schools of rationalism and neology, a prominent place is assigned 
to the vindication of absolute liberty of sceptical speculation, not 
merely for students, but for professors of theology. We need not, 
however, trace the connection.* That is of little moment. The 
arguments in this case have at least the merit of being intelli- 
gible and practical. Whether the Church has at present, and 
has had from the beginning, safeguards to preserve her doctrines 
from corruption — whether she has a right, and has exercised the 
right, to exact from all her ministers a pledge that so long as 
they retain her commission they will deliver those doctrines in 
their integrity to the people — whether the act of subscription by 
which the ministers give such pledge involves a moral, or a mere 
legal obligation — such questions stand upon independent grounds, 
and may be discussed without any reference to the sources from 
which the arguments we have to consider may, or may not, be 
derived. 

32. In this controversy the first point must needs be to ascertain 
the practice of the Apostles as recorded or intimated in the 
New Testament, and in the next place the practice of the Church 
in various periods of its development ; the most important, in a 
general point of view, being that critical epoch which terminated 
the first struggle with heathenism. Scarcely secondary is the 



* The history of the struggle of 
Rationalists, more especially the Licht- 
freunde, partisans or followers of 
Strauss, to get rid of all doctrinal 
tests, the Creeds included, is given by 



Gieseler, who, though differing from 
them in important points, sympathizes 
with them to some extent in that desire. 
See ' Kirchengeschichte d. n. Z.,' p. 
250 and 263. 



166 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay Im- 



position taken by our own Church, when it thoroughly investi- 
gated all points of principle and organization at the time of the 
Eeformation — a position retained without any substantial modi- 
fication at the present day. 

33. With regard to the first point, the ingenuity and disingenu- 
ousness of those who deny the propriety of doctrinal limitations 
are equally conspicuous. The subject is introduced, so to speak, 
casually, and disposed of with little intimation of its surpassing 
importance. If the Apostles* enforced a rule of faith, and made 
the teaching of sound doctrine an absolute and universal condi- 
tion of holding office in the Church, the principle is of course 
decided, whatever difficulty may be felt at any time about its 
practical application. Now, the first impression made upon every 
thoughtful reader of the New Testament is undoubtedly, that 
the whole system of Christian morals, most especially as concerns 
those characteristic peculiarities which distinguish the Christian 
from the heathen moralist, is not merely interwoven with the ex- 
ternal facts and positive doctrines of Christianity, but is altogether 
based upon them, and derives from them its sanctions, it& 
power, its life. The manifestation of the Divine life in man is a 
reflexion and efflux from the manifestation of God in Christ. 
The understanding and heart, the spiritual and the moral nature 
of man, are equally under the dominion and control of truths, 
which man has indeed a natural and inherent capacity for appre- 
hending when set before him, but which, in the actual state of 
his faculties, he is certainly unable to discover. Those truths 
are given in revelation in the two-fold form of facts and doctrines, 
equally positive, equally indispensable to the development of 
the spiritual man. The denial or perversion of either excludes 
a man from the benefits of the revelation — a result which follows 
of necessity from the very notion of a revelation, for why should 
truth be revealed but to be accepted ? We are not at present 
concerned with the question how far such result is reconcileable 
with the Divine attributes, or we might observe that the denial 
of what God has revealed must needs involve some penalty in 
beings responsible for the use of their faculties ; nor do we touch 
the case of those to whom the revelation has not been given ; 
Charity feels no need of speculations concerning those whom she 



* See. e. g.. 2 Timothy i, 13, 14 ; ii. 2 ; iii. 10, 14. 



Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 167 



leaves in faith and hope to the mercy of their Maker. We are 
not confining the effects of the atonement, which may, and 
doubtless do, extend far beyond the sphere of our contemplation ; 
but simply indicate the limits within which its full effects 
are experienced — limits undoubtedly coextensive with its recep- 
tion by the intellect and heart. Christ made confession of faith 
in Himself, and in the truths which He proclaimed, the condition 
of salvation. The Apostles, guided by His Spirit, exacted a de- 
claration of belief in those truths as a preliminary condition of 
admission to the Church, full in every case in proportion to the 
capacities of their hearers and their opportunities of knowing 
the truth, fullest and most explicit in the case of those whom 
they appointed to the work of the ministry. If so, the con- 
clusion is obvious, that the Church would cease to be a Church 
if she commissioned any to teach in her own and in her Master's 
name, when they are at direct issue with herself upon points 
which from the beginning have been held by those who denied, 
as well as by those who accepted them, to pertain to the very 
foundations of the faith. 

34. That position, however, clear as are the principles on which 
it rests, is now for the first time assailed ; not indeed directly, 
but by implication. We are told generally, that whereas the 
Apostles enjoin the infliction of the last penalty, that of ex- 
communication, for moral turpitude, they deal with speculative 
questions, even those which touch fundamental doctrines, simply 
by the way of controversy. The case selected is that of the for- 
nicator at Corinth, which is contrasted with that of heretics who 
denied a corporeal resurrection. With regard to the former 
there is no question. The proceeding of St. Paul in that case is, 
of course, of the highest importance as a proof of the existence 
and enforcement of disciplinarian powers in the Apostles, and in 
the Church, whose rulers were reproved for not having exercised 
them without St. Paul's intervention. It might be pointed out 
that the offence then punished consisted most probably in the 
infringement of a positive precept, which, though recognized by 
the moral instincts of heathendom, was first distinctly promul- 
gated by the Apostolic council at Jerusalem ;* and with reference 



* It is Hooker's opinion, in which j critics, as Eitschl, ' Die Entstelrang de r 
the latest and some of the acutest | altkatholischen Kirche,' p. 129, and 



168 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



to other controverted matters, that the circumstances under 
which the sentence was pronounced would lead to the conclusion 
that the powers deposited in the Church, and more especially 
in the Apostles as representatives of the Head of the Church, 
are in their essence independent of the State. With regard 
to the other point, which concerns the Apostle's mode of 
dealing with heretical opinions in fundamental matters, we 
wholly repudiate the inference drawn from a partial state- 
ment of his proceeding. It is said that St. Paul does not call 
for the expulsion of those among the Christian converts who had 
no belief in a corporeal resurrection. That may be : weakness 
of faith, errors in points of faith on the part of converts, hearers, 
and learners, were dealt with tenderly, by the way of controversy. 
The very objects of the Christian Church would otherwise be 
defeated. But the question is, whether St. Paul held that the 
opinions ought to be tolerated ? Whether they could be professed 
or retained without forfeiture of the distinctive privileges of 
Christians ? What does he say of those who held them ? What 
but that, if those opinions were maintained, their faith was vain, 
they were yet in their sins ; Christ had died in vain ? If such 
a declaration be not tantamount to excommunication, to cutting 
off those who obstinately persisted in such errors from Christian 
privileges, words have no meaning. Self condemned, they 
became aliens, relapsed into the state of unconversion, by the 
very fact of their denying, not indeed a speculative opinion, but 
what (as even ideologists admit, strangely inconsistent as such 
admission is with the system they* advocate) St. Paul always 
represents as the corner stone of the Christian belief. Of course 
the Apostle proceeds in the first instance by the way of contro- 
versy, or, to sjDeak more correctly, of demonstration. Of course 
his one great desire is to persuade, to convince, to win to the 
truth, those who were weak or unsound in the faith ; to clear up 
obscurities, and to remove difficulties from their way. Nor does 
he fail to show the inward harmony between the ordinary course 
of nature and the miraculous intervention of that Power by 



Wieseler, concur, that iropveia, in Acts 
xv. 20, means illicit marriages. Kitschl 
proves that St. Paul enforced the de- 
cree — a point of considerable importance 
in the controversy with the Tubingen 
school. 



* There is no point on which Ideo- 
logists, even those who partially adopt 
the system, are more generally agreed 
than the necessity of explaining away 
the fact of the Kesurrection. 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCEIPTION. 



169 



which the laws that regulate the course of nature were 
ordained. That, however, is no more than he does in the case 
of offenders against the moral law. He exhausts all the re- 
sources of persuasion, expostulation, and warning ; he appeals to 
the reason, the conscience, the heart, before he hints at any 
measure of a judicial character, even in the case of those who 
" defile the temple of the Holy Ghost." But, as in this latter case, 
when all such preliminary endeavours proved to be ineffectual, 
he resorted ultimately to the exercise of the awful powers en- 
trusted to the Apostles as governors of Christ's Church, as 
assessors with Him on the throne of judgment ; so also, beyond 
all doubt, he was prepared to act, even as he had acted in the 
case of Elymas at the very beginning of his ministry, in the 
case of all stubborn impugners of fundamental truths. 

In fact, the expressions which he uses in reference to those 
who attacked tenets which would undoubtedly be regarded by 
many as purely speculative and dogmatic, sound even harsh, 
and would be indefensible as they are painful, did they not pro- 
ceed from a principle of infinite importance to the integrity of 
the Christian faith. "I would that they were cut off that 
trouble you ;" " Let him be accursed who preaches to you 
another Gospel ;" these and similar * expressions had no refer- 
ence to evil livers, as such, but to teachers and maintainers of 
evil doctrines, with which all corruptions of our moral nature are 
connected, but which have their origin in that higher element 
of our spiritual and intellectual being, for the regulation and 
conscientious use of which our responsibility is grave, even in 
proportion to its excellence and the incomparable majesty of 
the objects with which it is concerned. 

We must further remark, that in order to bring the argument, 
such as it is, to bear upon the question of subscription as a con- 
dition of exercising the functions of the Christian ministry, it 
should have been shown that St. Paul admitted any man to 
preach publicly, in the capacity of an appointed teacher, against 
the Eesurrection, or any other, doctrine which had been plainly 
declared, or that he and his fellow Apostles failed to exercise 
the right of deposition, when admonition and warning were 



* Galatians v. 12 ; 1 Timothy iv. 1, I 10. Compare 2 John 10, 11 ; 2 Peter 
2 ; 2 Timothy iii. 8, 9 ; Titus i. 11, iii. | iii. 17 : Acts xx. 28-30. 



170 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



found ineffectual to secure the cause of truth. Such is not 
the conclusion which we draw from the case of Hymenseus 
and Alexander, whom the Apostle " delivered to Satan (the 
same sentence as that pronounced in the case of the Corinthian 
fornicator — one which, whatever might be its effect, undoubtedly 
amounts to excommunication), that they might learn not to blas- 
pheme ;" nor from that of Hymenaeus and Philetus, which is 
even more immediately to the point, " who erred concerning the 
truth, saying that the resurrection is already past " — unless, in- 
deed, we presume that St. Paul allowed their word to " eat as doth 
a canker," and to " overthrow the faith " of his converts, without 
using the power " given to him by the Lord " for the protec- 
tion of the weak brethren, "for whom Christ died." 

35. The practice of the early Church is too clearly established 
by a multitude of public acts to be open to a similar course of 
argument. The determination of the general body and the 
recognized representatives of the Christian community to ex- 
clude all teaching contrary to its fundamental principles, to 
guard its doctrinal deposit by strict, definite, and unmistakeable 
declarations, is the most prominent fact which meets every 
student of ecclesiastical history, which, indeed, is recognized 
most distinctly by those who feel a rooted antipathy to every 
shade of what they are pleased to call dogmatic intolerance. A 
different, and not implausible line of argument, is therefore 
adopted. The statement is hazarded that the State, rather than 
the Church, is responsible for this exclusiveness.* We are told f 
that, together with the inauguration of multitudinism, Constan- 
tine inaugurated a principle essentially at variance with it— 
that of doctrinal limitation ; and we are informed that his- 
torians, who are certainly all but unanimous upon the point, are 
wrong in supposing that the increasing strictness of definitions 
in the Christian creed must be attributed to the rise of succes- 



* It is a singular instance of the in- 
fluence which has been exercised, di- 
rectly or indirectly, by the writings of 
one of the most subtle and ingenious 
of modern controversialists, that even 
this argument is derived, though used 
for very different purposes, from New- 
man's theory about the Thirty-nine 
Articles. See ' Eomanism and Popular 
Protestantism,' Lecture ix. p. 278. 



"Their imposition in its first origin 
was much more a political than an ec- 
clesiastical act ; it was a provision of 
the State rather than of the Church, 
though the Church co-operated — the 
outward form into which our religion 
was cast has depended in no slight 
measure on the personal opinions and 
wishes of laymen and foreigners." 
t E. and P., p. 160. 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



171 



sive heresies. Such assertions can, of course, only be refuted 
completely by a searching inquiry into the records of Christian 
antiquity ; but they may be met by some decisive facts ; and 
we have no hesitation in asserting that the part thus assigned 
to the first Christian emperor is diametrically in opposition to 
historical facts. So far from inaugurating the principle of 
doctrinal limitation, Constantine from first to last had one 
paramount object, and that was to get rid of doctrinal discus- 
sions, and to bring about a compromise between conflicting 
parties — in fact, to do exactly what we are told would have 
been so desirable, viz., to enforce forbearance between the great 
antagonistic parties, and to insist on the maxim that neither had 
a right to limit the common Christianity to the exclusion of the 
other. Constantine looked upon the controversy between Catho- 
lics and Arians, as the representatives of the secular authority 
are generally disposed to do, altogether from without ; and the 
special points under discussion were to him matters of utter in- 
difference.* The course which he pursued in the first instance 
was the very wisest that could be devised ; nor, considering the 
unparalleled importance of the crisis and the results of his 
decision, do we see how Christians can doubt that it was brought 
about by the great Head of the Church. He called together from 
all quarters of his empire the governors of the whole Christian 
community, and referred the questions under discussion to their 
arbitration. The result was absolutely decisive. The Nicene 
Creed was drawn up as a declaration of what was included in 
that common Christianity. It defined the true limits beyond 
which no teacher -f could go without infringing the fundamental 
principles of the faith. With the exception of one word, that 
Creed contained no single statement in which, both as regarded 
substance and form, all Churches had not previously coincided. 
That word represented not "the hardening of fluid and un- 
settled notions," but the existence of one fixed universal con- 
viction, that the centre and life of Christianity is found in the 
recognition of the absolute and perfect Godhead of its Founder 
and Head. The word was chosen, not by Constantine, but by 



* See his epistle to Alexander and 
Arms. Euseb. V. C, ii. 69, 70. 

t It must be remembered that sub- 
scription was exacted at once of the 



clergy, as being teachers, but not of 
the laity. Anathemas, however, were 
pronounced against all who openly 
denied the doctrines of the Creed. ' 



172 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



those divines who clearly perceived the vital character of the 
questions at issue. They chose it because nothing short of an 
exact definition would deliver Christendom from the corrup- 
tion with which it was menaced. The word was open to cavil, 
and, if left unexplained, to fan objection ;* but with such expla- 
nation as was at once given and accepted, it expressed the mind 
of the universal Church. It must not be supposed that the 
object was to express the personal opinions of the Bishops pre- 
sent ; even the arguments by which they might defend those 
opinions were matters, comparatively speaking, of indifference. 
In selecting that word they were actuated but by one wish — that 
of expressing clearly and unmistakeably the conviction of the 
entire body in whose name they spoke. The most unlearned, 
the least conversant with technical terms or philosophical dis- 
cussions among them, were rejoiced to have that word, feeling 
that they could not show then faces to their own congregations 
if they returned without having recorded such a decision as 
might exclude for ever the incongruous and hostile element from 
the sphere of Christian communion. Constantine did but give 
effect to the universal will. They inaugurated the doctrinal 
limitation ; he gave it for the time legal validity. Nor must it 
be lost sight of, that all the special pleading, all the philosophical 
speculations and technical innovations began, as indeed has 
always been the case, not with the maintainers, but with the 
opponents of the old Catholic doctrine. " That there was a time 
when God the Word was not ; that He was alien in essential sub- 
stance from the absolute God ;" these and similar forms of what 
the Church then rejected — and so long as she exists will ever 
reject as blasphemy — had then origin in the catechetical schools 
tainted most deeply by neoplatonism. The necessity of a new, 
a more searching and comprehensive, and at the same time a 
more exclusive term, was entirely owing to those metaphysical 
speculations. The Church acknowledged the truth of the con- 



* See Athanasius, ' De Syn. Nic.,' 
§ 20-24, and Basil, Ep. 52, with Gar- 
nier's note. It is well known that all 
the great divines of that age were quite 
satisfied with an honest acceptance of 
the doctrine expressed by 'Oixoovaios, 



even in the case of those who for a 
time were •unwilling to receive that 
word. Few writers of late have dealt 
with the question so fairly as the Bene- 
dictine editors, or as Tillemont, '* Me- 
moires H. E.,' torn. iv. p. 125. 



Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 173 



elusion drawn by its most clearsighted champions, that the intro- 
duction of an intermediate Being, neither truly God nor truly 
man,' was a subtle but unquestionable form of polytheism,* sub- 
versive of all the principles on which the redemption of 
humanity depends. The decision was, undoubtedly, exclusive. 
It excluded — it ejected as a poison, a gangrene, a treasonable 
lie — the doctrine which is too often regarded as a mere verbal 
error, or one depending upon the inherent imperfection of a 
finite intellect ; but for that exclusiveness the Church, and the 
Church alone, is responsible. So far indeed was the State from 
taking upon itself the responsibility of this " doctrinal limita- 
tion," that within a very short time its whole power was brought 
to bear upon the Church, in order to compel it to reverse 
its decision and to eliminate that one word from its creed- 
During the reigns of two most able and powerful sovereigns 
no means of fraud, intimidation, or violence were spared 
to produce the result which is now represented to be so 
desirable — that of sweeping away the limitary definition which 
shut out the only influential dissentients from office and com- 
munion in the Church. It was assuredly a providential dis- 
pensation to test the sincerity of the Church's faith, and to 
demonstrate its independence of the State. An age of terrible 
struggles intervened before the final triumph ; but during that 
time the principle took such root that no storms have since 
shaken it. One point requires especial notice ; it is often 
overlooked : neither Constantine nor his successors attempted 
to introduce the terms of the Arian heresy in the formularies 
which they recommended,! freely as they allowed the doctrines 
of Arianism to be preached; they merely wished to exclude 
from the Creed the one word of doctrinal limitation; and in 
that attempt they failed. The early Church knew that it 
was a matter of life or death ; and in the position where that 
Church left us we stand, with a Creed definitely stating, not 



* This is the great, the palmary ar- 
gument of Athanasius, adopted by 
Basil, Gregory, and all the great di- 
vines who have written against Arian- 
ism. 

t Hence not only Constantine, but 



even Constantius is spoken of in terms 
of respect by stanch but candid up- 
holders of the orthodox doctrine, as 
Hilary, Ambrose, Theodoret, and 
Gregory Nazianzen. See the preface 
to G. N. Or. iv. p. 76, ed. Ben. 



174 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



explaining or discussing, but simply declaring, those doctrinal 
facts* without which our common Christianity would be a 
mere name. 

36. That the actual position of our own Church is definite and 
unrnistakeable is recognized both by those who maintain, 
and not less distinctly by those who assail it, as is shown 
by the direction of their attacks. It is in principle precisely 
that of the Apostolic Church, in fact of all portions of the 
Church, in the best and purest ages. The first object of our 
Church is to determine the grounds on which all its doctrine is 
based. That she does by enumerating the canonical books of 
Holy Writ, to which alone she appeals for authoritative con- 
firmation of her teaching. Belief in the Scriptures, in their 
genuineness, authenticity, and divine origin — belief in them not 
merely as fundamental, but as the foundation of all funda- 
mentals^ the sole and sufficient warrant for the Creeds J them- 
selves, is the first condition of communion, a condition not 
stated simply because it is assumed as a point about which no 
question could be raised by Christians. The Bible is to our 
Church § as it was to the early Church, as it was most distinctly 
and emphatically to the Churches of the Beformation, the 
Word of God. The three Creeds are accepted and set forth 
as the condensed declaration of the articles of faith which 
she holds, on the ground of their seripturality, to be true, and 
on that of their importance to be fundamental. In the Thirty- 
nine Articles of Beligion she exhibits the whole body of her 
theology as contradistinguished from that of churches which 
had corrupted, mutilated, or added to, the truth. The general 
objects of those Articles are to repudiate the errors of the 



* I use the expression advisedly — j xx. xxii. xxxiv. There cannot be any 

the doctrines of the Church are facts, J reasonable doubt that the " word of 

and the facts are doctrines. j God ; ' in these Articles means the Bible, 

t The term first used, if I mistake | In other passages it might possibly be 



not, by Newman. See ' Romanism and 
Popular Protestantism,' p. 287. It coin- 
cides with Chillingworth's well-known 
saying, and with Hegel's, " Dabei," i. e., 
with the Creeds, " gait in der pro- 
testantischen Kirche die Bestimmung, 
dass die Bibel die wesentliche Grund- 
lage der Lehre sey." — ' Philosophic der 
Religion,' p. 29. 
X Article viii. 

§ See Articles xvii. (the last words), 



explained away, but the expressions 
" Holy Scripture " and " word of God " 
were most certainly synonymous in the 
mind of the compilers of the Articles, 
as they are now in the mind of the im- 
posers of subscription. The results of 
denying that the word of God is co- 
extensive with Holy Scripture are 
drawn out clearly enough in E. and E., 
p. 176, 177. 



Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



175 



Papal system, and to maintain what is called the Catholic 
doctrine, — that is, the whole system of doctrines recognized by 
the Church of Christ as opposed to early heresies * So far her 
position is clear. With regard to the acts of adhesion required 
of her members, we find the same substantial identity of 
principle with the early Church. As to hearers of the word, to 
attendants upon her services, we readily admit that no formal 
act of adherence beyond what is given in baptism, and is after- 
wards implied by their acceptance of her ministrations, ought to 
be required. Nor does our Church require it.f As we believe to 
have been the practice in the Apostolic age, she admits all appli- 
cants to free participation in any ordinances from which, judging 
for themselves, they expect to derive benefit ; nor does she retain 
even so much of the discipline of the post-Apostolic Church as 
might be held desirable in order to protect the most solemn rites 
from profanation. Even that risk is incurred in preference to 
the possible exclusion of timid and scrupulous believers. Our 
Church, to use a somewhat pedantic but not inexpressive term, is 
multitudinous, in the sense that it does not inquire minutely and 
jealously into the qualifications and opinions of its members, 
but opens wide its gates day and night, and offers freely to all 
the leaves that were given for the healing of the nations. But 
that is quite a different question from the terms of admission to 
the functions of the ministry. J Our Church has learned from 
St. Paul, from his fellow Apostles, and from his Master, that an 



* See Dr. Arnold's ' Life and Corre- 
spondence,' ii. p. 136. The passage is 
quoted further on. Compare Water- 
land, vol. ii. p. 302. 

f This does not touch the case of 
the Universities. Of course, any colle- 
giate or corporate institution has the 
right to impose its own conditions for 
admission to its privileges or benefices. 
There is great force in the arguments 
of the pamphlet, written, I believe, 
"by Mr. Maurice, ' Subscription no Bon- 
dage,' 1835 — "In all schools and uni- 
versities there is a contract expressed 
or implied between the teacher and the 
learner, as to the principles on which 
the one agrees to teach and the other 
to learn — and to state the terms of this 
contract is at once the most honest me- 
thod, and the most serviceable to edu- 
cation." 



J Thus Waterland — " Subscription 
is not a term of lay communion, but of 
ministerial conformity, on acceptance 
of trusts and privileges," vol. ii. p. 362. 
Again, " This writer cannot distinguish 
between ejecting and not admitting, 
nor between Church-communion and 
Church-trusts. I said not a word about 
ejecting any man out of communion," 
ib. p. 392. Bishop Bull takes pre- 
cisely the same view, 'Vindication of 
the Church of England,' vol. ii. p. 211, 
ed. Burton. So also does Bishop Jeremy 
Taylor, * Ductor dubitantium,' hi. c. 4. 
In accordance with this principle, Atha- 
nasius admitted the Semi-Arians to 
communion, although they would not 
accept the term Homousion; but he 
would not allow them to hold office in 
the Church. 



176 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



imperfect knowledge, much more denial of the truth when it 
extends to fundamental principles, when it touches the " Divine 
personalities/' and the authority of God's word, is an insuperable 
disqualification for the ministerial office. 

37. It is disingenuous to represent this difference between a lay 
and clerical member of the Church as implying that one is free 
to inquire, the other bound to profess what, be it true or be it 
false, may not be true to him. The layman is simply treated, 
so far and so long as he chooses to be so treated, as one whose 
opinions are in process of formation ; whereas the other, by the 
mere fact of his assuming the functions of a teacher, declares that 
upon all essential points his mind is already made up. A 
school of theology may, within certain limits, be a fair arena for 
speculative conflicts ; but the chair of the professor, and a fortiori 
the pulpit of the minister, should be occupied by one who is in 
possession of the truth. It has been stated, that whenever laymen 
are put in positions where their influence may affect the religious 
principles of members of the Church, the same guarantees are 
exacted as in the case of ministers. Though incorrect in point 
of fact, that statement bears witness to the reasonableness of the 
condition, that professed teachers of the Church's doctrines ought, 
in some form or other, to give an assurance that they know what 
these doctrines are, and that they receive them and intend to 
teach them without any essential modification. There are 
several conceivable ways in which the Church may satisfy her- 
self upon this point ; but surely the easiest and most natural — 
the least open to the charge of unfairness — is to state clearly, 
broadly, and completely, the principles, and doctrines, which 
she holds to be fundamental, and to require of those who are 
candidates for the most important of all offices, a declaration 
deliberately made and attested by the simple act of subscription, 
that they are one in mind and in convictions with herself. The 
Church can do no less than demand such a pledge, that at the time 
when a man accepts that office, he allows,* that is, he honestly 
and unreservedly approves and assents to her code of faith. 



* It is strange that any scholar should 
raise a question as to the meaning of 
this word. It occurs frequently in our 
early formularies, and always in the 
sense of approving and accepting. See 
also Luke xi. 48 ; 1 Thess. ii. 4. As 
to its meaning in Subscription, Jeremy 



Taylor writes thus (1. c.) : — " Lubens et 
ex animo subscripsi, that's our form in 
the Church of England. Consentiens 
subscripsi : so it was in the ancient 
Church, as St. Austin reports. I con- 
sent to the thing, my mind goes with 
it." 



Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



177 



38. This, it is said, is equivalent to a promise that a man will 
believe, and that is a promise which it is not in his power to fulfil. 
But so far as regards belief, subscription is not a promise, but a 
declaration.* Whatever promise is implied concerns not our con- 
victions, but our acts. We pledge ourselves simply to this, that, 
so long as we hold an office of trust, we will not contravene the 
purposes for which it was instituted. The objects of our faith are, 
indeed, immutable truths ; but, knowing the changeableness of 
the subjective faculties which apprehend them, and the manifold 
disturbances to which spiritual development is liable, we make 
no promise that we will retain those convictions ; although, from 
the very nature of convictions touching the highest interests of 
our being, we entertain a hope, a trust, a something in all honest 
men approaching to, and in single-hearted believers identified 
with, a confident assurance that we shall retain them to the end. 
The promise, however, as to acts is binding, on the plainest 
grounds of moral obligation, and that without any reference to 
the possible contingency of legal penalties and disqualifications 
in case of its violation. 

39. This point is of primary importance. It concerns our con- 
science more nearly than any considerations bearing upon our 
ministerial position. It has been lately asserted, as I believe for 
the first time, that the moral obligation of the act of subscription 
is commensurate and identical with the legal obligation. Now 
the effect of this doctrine, were it generally adopted, would be 
the practical annihilation of all obligation, in the great majority 
of cases where any question could arise. It is but too obvious 
that a man may, if not directly, yet by insinuation and unmis- 
takable inference, attack even the fundamental doctrines of the 
Ohurch without incurring the danger of legal conviction. In fact, 
so far as the mere legal obligation is concerned, there could be 
no object whatever in requiring subscription. That act does not 



* Thus Jeremy Taylor, 1. c, c. xxiii. 
"** Ecclesiastical subscription only gives 
witness of our present consent, but ac- 
cording to its design and purpose for 
the future it binds us only to the con- 
servation of peace and unity." His 
view of the act of subscription is of great 
importance. " It implies that he who 
subscribes does actually approve the 



articles overwritten — does, at _ the time, 
believe them to be such as it is said 
they are : true, if they only say they 
are true ; useful, if they pretend to use- 
fulness ; necessary, if it is affirmed they 
are necessary. For if the subscriber 
believe not this, he by hypocrisy serves 
the ends of public peace, and his own 
preferment." 



178 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



render a man liable to legal consequences in a higher or different 
degree than would the acceptance of an office to which certain 
conditions are attached by the legislature. It is perfectly com- 
petent to the supreme authority to inflict deprivation for any 
infringement of those conditions, without reference to the pre- 
vious concurrence of ministers in the definition of their duties. 
The act of subscription would be superfluous, if it did not 
superadd to the legal a perfectly distinct and incomparably 
higher obligation, — even one which binds the conscience of an 
honest man.* 

40. The existence of the moral obligation does not, however, de- 
termine its exact nature and extent. The question still remains, 
how far the act of subscription implies conformity between a 
man's inmost convictions and the doctrinal formularies of the 
Church, f That the conformity does not necessarily extend to an 
absolute and entire acceptation of any human formularies, as 
exhaustive or perfect representations of Divine truth, may readily 
be conceded. Such a demand would, in fact, be tantamount to 
an assumption of verbal and plenary inspiration, which the com- 
pilers of the documents and the imposers of subscription would be 
the first to disclaim. The conformity must, however, amount to 
as much as this. Taking the articles of religion in their natural 
and obvious meaning, X as upon the whole with singular unani- 
mity, and in the most essential points with absolute unanimity, 
they have been understood and interpreted by our great divines, 
the subscriber recognizes in them a faithful exhibition of 
Christian doctrine, the rule of his public teaching, the authori- 
tative expression of the faith once delivered to the saints. On 
two points especially, an explicit and unhesitating act of adhe- 
sion is demanded — the canon of Holy Scripture, and the Creeds 



* See the touching and unanswer- 
able statement of Mr. Whiston, quoted 
by Waterland, vol. ii. p. 400. 

t This is the declaration of the four 
Oxford Tutors in 1841 :— " We readily 
admit the necessity of allowing that 
liberty in interpreting the formularies 
of our Church which has been advo- 
cated by many of our most learned 
bishops and eminent divines ; but this 
tract puts forth new and startling 
views as to the extent to which that 
liberty may be carried. For if we are 



right in our apprehension of the 
author's meaning, we are at a loss to 
see what security would remain, were 
his principles generally recognized, 
that the most plainly erroneous doc- 
trines and practices of the Church of 
Rome might not be inculcated in the 
lecture-rooms of the university and 
from the pulpits of our churches." 

X See Dr. Waterland on ' Arian Sub- 
scription,' vol. ii. p. 335. Bishops Bull, 
vol. ii. p. 211, and J. Taylor, quoted 
above. 



Essay IY.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCKIPTION. 



179 



which present its fundamental doctrines in a concentrated form.* 
Short of this conformity, it is certain that a minister cannot 
sympathize with the spirit, or give effect to the purposes, of the 
Church. Common sense, in this case fully in accord with the 
highest reason, is a sufficient guide to the most cautious and 
scrupulous inquirer. Nor can I forbear from quoting the words 
of one whom no man will suspect of any tendency to dogmatic 
intolerance, any disregard of even exaggerated sensitiveness. In 
a letter to one who had felt much perplexity about subscription, 
after alluding to difficulties formerly experienced by himself, Dr. 
Arnold! writes thus : — " The real honesty of subscription appears 
to me to consist in a sympathy with the system to which you 
subscribe, in a preference of it, not negatively merely as better 
than others, but positively, as in itself good and true in its most 
characteristic points. Now, the most characteristic points of the 
English Church are two : that it maintains what is called the 
Catholic Faith as opposed to the early heresies, and is also de- 
cidedly a Keformed Church as opposed to the priestly and Papal 
system." Such must have been the feelings of the Oxford tutor J 
who some twenty years since bore this testimony to our Church, 
with especial reference to its safeguard of subscription — "I 
know not where free scope may be found for the feelings of awe, 
mystery, tenderness, and devotedness, when they struggle for 
utterance in the breast of the spiritual man, more freely than in 
our own communion : where our sons are taught, without adding 
thereto, or diminishing aught from it, the great mystery of godli- 
ness : God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of 
angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, 
received up into glory." No one holding those principles could 
feel any difficulty in subscription. Such a man is satisfied, not 
because he is safe from legal consequences, but because he feels 
himself in harmony with the spirit of his Church, because he 
knows that he is offering an honest act of fealty, and is willing, 
without subterfuge or equivocation, to carry out her intentions to 



* To these should be added the doc- 
trine of the Sacraments. The statute of 
Elizabeth 13, which requires subscrip- 
tion to all the Articles, specifies in the 
first place such only as concern the 
confession of the Christian faith and 
the doctrine of the Holy Sacraments. 



See Collier, « Ecclesiastical History,' vol. 
vi. pp. 485 and 489. 

t ' Life and Correspondence,' vol. ii. 
p. 177. 

% * Letter to Kev. T. T. Churton by 
Eev. H. B. Wilson,' 1841. 

S 2 



180 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



the best of his ability. Should it, indeed, unhappily be the case, 
that in after years his mind should be so affected as to reject not 
merely a word here and there, the meaning or application of 
expressions about which the most learned and candid writers 
have differed, or even positive determinations upon questions of 
subordinate importance, but the great truths, the objective facts, 
the fundamental doctrines set forth plainly and unmistakably 
in those formularies, then surely the moral obligation is posi- 
tive. It leaves but one alternative. He cannot do the work 
which he has undertaken, cannot preach the doctrines, cannot 
proclaim the facts which are the very foundation of the Church : 
ho^ can he retain the trust ? If people did not understand this 
to be our feeling as ministers, they would speedily seek for 
•some other guarantee. If it were generally believed that, when 
called upon to clear himself from " odious imputations," a mi- 
nister might put a stop to all further inquiry by simply renewing 
his subscription, with a clear understanding that thereby he 
means no more than that he recognizes a legal obligation, retain- 
ing the right of explaining away, or even denying privately and 
publicly, the very statements to which he puts his hand, the 
whole body of the laity would scout the very notion of sub- 
scription, would reject it as illusory, as a mere sham.* The only 
light in which they look upon subscription is, that it is a means 
of ascertaining what truths a man holds, and what he holds him- 
self bound to teach, — not surely upon what terms he may con- 
sider himself justified in retaining office or emoluments in the 
Church. They will be prepared to allow time for consideration 
to any man harassed by perplexing doubts : no man would be 
regarded with more entire sympathy and tenderness than one 
whose spirit might be overwrought in its struggles with storms 
which haunt the higher regions of intellectual life : but so long 



* These words express with equal 
force and accuracy the general feelings 
of the laity. " If the Church of Eng- 
land really possesses that element of 
vitality which her sons proudly believe 
to be inherent in her, she will never 
flinch from vindicating the integrity of 
her Articles and the uniformity of her 
belief ; but if she should be ill-advised 
enough to allow her tests to be broken 
down and rendered void by strained 
and licentious expositions, if she place 



her only hope of safety and unity in 
allowing her sons to profess one creed 
and believe another, let her prepare 
for that well-merited downfall to which 
deceit and double dealing never fail to 
conduct." A tract bearing the title, 
'The Articles Construed by Them- 
selves,' Oxford, 1841, attributed, as I 
believe, to K. Lowe, Esq., formerly of 
Magdalen College, now Vice-President 
of the Committee of Council on Edu- 
cation. 



Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



181 



as he works, prays, preaches, administers the sacraments of 
the Church, or discharges the kindred and no less responsible 
duty of forming the character of youth under the sanction of 
the ministerial office, laymen presume, and would be scandalized 
to hear it doubted, that he holds substantially the convictions 
which he professed, when formally, publicly, deliberately, at a 
most critical moment of his life, he signed his name in token 
of unfeigned assent to the Articles of his Church. 

41. One reason assigned for the removal of all doctrinal tests 
may require special consideration.* It is stated that there is a 
wide-spread and increasing alienation from the Church ; that the 
minds of thoughtful men reject the views of Christian doctrine 
commonly advanced in our churches and chapels — that is, in 
other words, by the teachers of nearly all religious denomina- 
tions ; and it is distinctly implied, that this alienation is to be 
attributed to the growing sense of incompatibility between the 
tenets generally regarded as essential to Christianity, and the 
conclusions of reason from the progress of science, and more 
especially "from the advance of general knowledge concerning 
the inhabitancy of the world." We might question the fact of an 
increasing alienation. We might argue that, compared with the 
state of the Church in the last century, her existing condition is 
one of wider and far more effectual influence ; that every test 
upon which reliance can be placed indicates a strengthening 
of religious convictions; that the number of communicants is 
multiplied at least tenfold ; that the very face of the country 
is changed by the multitude of churches built, enlarged, or 
restored ; and that, for the first time since the Keformation, 
our Church has grappled with the real difficulties of her position, 
sends forth missionaries to all quarters of the earth, and has or- 
ganized the colonial episcopate. We might point to many of 
the greatest names in art, science, literature, and politics, which 
within the same period have recognized in our Church a true 
manifestation of the Divine life. Nor, again, can it be denied 
that the alleged facts of the census of 1851, in themselves most 
questionable, have been most unfairly applied. Certainly, of all 



* Mr. Wilson can hardly hope to dis- 
prove his own forcible statement. 
" Schemes of comprehension of neces- 
sity defeat their own design : if weak 



brethren are included on the one hand, 
weak brethren are excluded on the 
other."— Letter to Rev. T. T. Churton. 



182 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IV. 



inferences, the least reasonable is, that the absence of some 
45 per cent, of the population from public service was in any- 
way attributable to conscientious objections to the doctrine 
taught in our churches, or to a conviction that heathenism, after 
all, is no very lamentable condition of two-thirds of the human 
race. We should have thought that ignorance, vice, and indif- 
ference, on the one hand, on the other, the want of sufficient 
and proper accommodation, were generally recognized as the 
main causes of what certainly was a, most painful result of 
an inquiry into the actual number of worshippers. Upon 
these points we need not dilate ; but this we maintain without 
hesitation, — the alienation, to whatever extent it may really 
exist, is not owing to the doctrines set forth in the Creeds 
of our Church, and embodied in her liturgical formularies. 
The surest way of emptying any church or chapel is to substi- 
tute |f or earnest preaching of those very doctrines which are 
specially selected for attack or suspicion, a vague, cold, ration- 
alistic system of so-called Christian ethics.* Let the people 
suspect that their ethical development is the single object of all 
the instrumentality of the Church, they would simply throw it 
off as^cumbrous and superfluous ; and they would be right. The 
experiment has been tried here and abroad. It has had one 
unvarying result. In Germany, where for a time it had free 
play, it alienated the great body of the nation from the commu- 
nion of the Church. In England sufficient proof has been 
given that a " prudential system of ethics " not only fails " as a 
restraining force upon society," but that, disjoined from the vital 
doctrines of Christianity, it leads rapidly to the decay, and ends 
in the dissolution, of any denomination by which it is adopted. 
This is the case even in independent communities where the 
principal parts of the service are adjusted by the minister and 
his congregation — where prayer and psalmody may be kept 
in harmony with preaching, however rationalistic. But in a 
church where the doctrines taught in the Creeds find an ex- 
pression in every prayer, the contradiction between the sermon 
of a rationalist and the words which he is constrained to 



* Not but that our strictest dogma- 
tical writers are most careful to assign 
its right place to morality. Waterland 
says, with reference to this very ques- 



tion of subscription, " Every heresy in 
morality is of more pernicious conse- 
quence than heresies in point of positive 
religion." 



Essay IV.] 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



183 



utter in his ministerial functions, will always be, and ought 
always to be, fatal to his influence. If the congregation have 
good reason to suspect that, in reciting the Creeds, the mi- 
nister looks upon himself as subjected to the hard bondage of 
uttering what he inwardly disavows, or regards as an "unhappy " 
form ; that in the petitions of the Litany he uses expressions 
touching the " Divine personalities " which are to him little more 
than metaphysical abstractions, or speculative conclusions of the 
schools ; if they believe that, from the opening prayer to the 
final blessing, there has been a constant struggle, a series of in- 
ward protests, jesuitical reservations or interpretations, going on 
within the mind of the reader ; whatever else may be the effect 
upon their hearts, one effect is sure, their moral sense will be 
shocked, they will recoil in indignation from such hypocrisy. 
Even supposing he should have communicated to them his own 
unhappy doubts and repugnances, they will feel that it is a bad 
and evil thing for them to share in acts of such glaring and 
flagrant inconsistency. They will soon desert the church alto- 
gether, or testify their contempt for the ordinances or the mi- 
nister, by their demeanour when he preaches, or by their expres- 
sive silence in the acts of common worship. One thing must 
be looked in the face. The abolition of subscription to those 
doctrines which find expression in our Liturgy * would be utterly 
futile unless that Liturgy itself were entirely reconstructed. No 
partial reform, not the widest reform which has ever been sug- 
gested, or would be tolerated by the most indifferent and scep- 
tical congregation in this land, would free from intellectual 
bondage the conscience of those who are now calling for the 
relaxation of subscription. It is not a mere phrase here and 
there which would change their position ; it is the very spirit of 
Christianity, full of the recognition of its most special and cha- 
racteristic truths, which drives the minister to the alternative 
of speaking as a believer in each and all essential doctrines, or 
of standing self-convicted and self-condemned in the presence of 
Him whom he mocks by the utterance of prayers which he in- 
wardly disavows. 

What we desire is this, — to bring into the fold of Christ's 



* This was distinctly felt by the I last century. See Dr. Waterland's tract 
leaders in the Arian controversy in the | on ' Arian Subscription,' vol. ii. 



184 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IY. 



Church all who are estranged from its communion ; but it must 
be a complete and an honest work. Our commission is to give 
and teach the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 
The Christian faith is a perfect and indissoluble whole. We 
cannot consent to mutilate or disfigure it. We cannot entrust it 
to the care of any ministers who are not prepared to give full 
and satisfactory pledges that they accept it as a whole. We 
have no fear of any consequences, so long as men can rely upon 
the trustworthiness of the agents through whom the Church acts. 
The one thing of which all need to be assured is, that their 
ministers hold fast the form of sound words; the truth once 
delivered to the saints ; the canon of Holy Scriptures, which 
are able to make wise unto salvation; the knowledge of the 
Father and the Son, which is eternal life ; in a word, faith in the 
Incarnation and the Atonement, without any subtlety of inter- 
pretation, in the plain sense accepted by all the Churches 
of Christendom. Upon subordinate, or purely speculative 
questions, considerable latitude of interpretation is conceded 
— the wider and freer the better for the cause of truth. But 
this liberty is conceded because men doubt not that they who 
use it accept those fundamental truths. Abuse of the conces- 
sion — attempts to strain the liberty so as to unsettle the doctrines 
nearest to the hearts of Christians, would speedily bring about 
results the very opposite to those contemplated by many who 
struggle against existing limitations. It must be borne in mind, 
that if changes were made, they would probably be made in 
a different direction from that pointed out by latitudinarians. 
To increase, not to diminish our securities, — to exclude, not to 
admit incongruous and adverse elements — such would be the 
great object of all earnest Christian men ; of those who would 
undoubtedly take the lead should the national ark be unloosed 
from its moorings, should the storms of angry and unscrupulous 
controversy once more thoroughly rouse the national spirit. 
We are far from wishing for any increase of stringency. So 
far as regards the terms of admission to the ministry, we are 
satisfied with existing safeguards, provided always that men do 
not palter with us in a double meaning, that we are safe from 
special pleading and equivocation, that declarations are made 
in the sense in which those who hear them are well known to 
receive them, — that, in a word, we have precisely the same 



Essay IY.j 



IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 



185 



kind of confidence which is felt by all honourable men who are 
parties to compacts involving the recognition of weighty duties 
distinctly set forth and understood. 

We need not fear the issue of the controversy. It may 
justify watchfulness, but not alarm. It is true that some ques- 
tions have been raised, which are not likely to be finally settled 
in this generation. The elements which have thrown the mind of 
Europe into a state of disturbance, have undoubtedly penetrated 
very deeply into England. Our young men will have to pass 
through a fiery trial. It is not an age for rest, for unreasoning 
acquiescence in past traditions. The progress of religious 
knowledge will in future be more beset by speculative and 
intellectual difficulties than has been the case in former years. 
Candidates for the ministry must not be contented with meagre 
introductions to Holy Scripture, or a superficial analysis of its 
contents. It will be their duty — a duty more strongly felt 
than ever — to ascertain the grounds on which the Canon of 
Scripture has been received by the Church, and the proofs of 
the genuineness and authenticity of its contents ; they will test 
more closely and severely the evidences for all the doctrinal 
statements, to which after careful examination they will have 
to declare their assent. But in all this work they have abundant 
help. The close, microscopic examination of the Book of Life 
is daily bringing its secret beauties into clearer light. The 
progress of historical research opens new fields of discovery in 
which the Scriptural exegetist finds valuable materials. The 
deep spiritual meaning of many an obscure passage or neglected 
fact is discerned more distinctly by those who, candidly but 
warily, scrutinize the objections of antagonists to the faith. The 
current of religious thought flows in broader and deeper 
channels than heretofore, and the vessels of those who sail under 
the sure guidance of the Spirit of God will reach the haven 
freighted with treasures of great price. Antagonisms may 
indeed become stronger, secessions perhaps be more frequent ; 
superstition and infidelity may claim each its share in the 
spoil of troubled and faithless spirits ; but the revelation of 
Christ will not lose its hold upon the heart of the humble, 
nor upon the intellect of the truthful inquirer. Our branch 
of the Church will not be disinherited of its privileges or 
stripped of its safeguards; it will eject rationalism in every 



186 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV. 

form, more especially in the most un-English and Jesuitical 
of all forms, that of Ideology. It will continue to do its own 
proper work, preparing its members not for a dreamy state 
of repose in the bosom of the universal Parent, but for a 
full, perfect, and conscious life in the presence of the living 
God. 



ESSAY V. 
THE MOSAIC RECORD OP CREATION. 



CONTENTS OF ESSAY V. 



1. Introduction : The Creator, Elc- 

him — Jehovah. 

2. The Eiohistic and Jehovistic theory, 

as stated by Bleek — Theories of 
Astruc, Eichhorn, Hgen, De Wette, 
Von Bohlen, Gramberg, Ewald, 
Hiipfeldt, and Knobel. 

3. "Want of unity — The most celebrated 

critics convict each other of false 
criticism — Their conclusions va- 
lueless. 

4. "Elohim'' and "Jehovah" not sy- 

nonymous. 

5. The Creation— Unity of the first 

two chapters of Genesis : they do 
not contain two distinct accounts 
of the Creation. 

6. Assertion' that the Mosaic cosmo- 

gony is contradicted by the disco- 
veries and progress of science, and 
that, therefore, Moses could not 
have been inspired. 

7. First supposed difficulty, the age of 

the world. 



8. The words of Moses, though com- 

prehensive as to time, are precise 
as to the fact of creation. 

9. Meaning of the phrase " The hea- 

vens and the earth." 

10. Gen. i. 2 : The state of the earth 

before the six days' work. 

11. Verse 3 compared with verses 14-19 

— Light and the earth before the 
sun — Theory of La Place. 

12. Meaning of the word " day." 

13. The six days not the six Geological 

periods. 

14. Supposed imm obility of the earth. 

15. The Mosaic firmament an expanse, 

not a solid vault. 

16. Creation of one human pair — State- 

ment in 'Essays and Reviews' 
that the original formation of only 
one pair of human beings is taught 
only in the 2nd chapter, and not 
in the 1st. 

17. Conclusion. 



THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 



1. Almost all ancient nations have traditions respecting the 
origin of the universe. These traditions differ in detail and 
representation according to the genius of the people by whom 
they have been preserved, but they retain a family likeness, 
and certain points of contact with each other and the Mosaic 
cosmogony, with which some exhibit a striking resemblance. 
Thus the Etruscans relate that God created the world in six 
thousand years. In the first thousand He created the heaven 
and the earth ; in the second the firmament ; in the third the sea 
and the other waters of the earth ; in the fourth sun, moon, and 
stars ; in the fifth the animals belonging to air, water, and land ; 
in the sixth man alone.* The Persian tradition also recognises 
the six periods of creation, assigning to the first the heavens ; to 
the second the waters ; to the third the earth ; to the fourth 
trees and plants ; to the fifth animals ; to the sixth man.t Others 
mention the darkness, the chaotic mass of waters, the Spirit 
of God ; so that even in the judgment of modern critics, there 
must have been " a primitive, cosmogonical myth, universally 
pervading antiquity.''^ How and when that universal myth arose, 
modern criticism does not say ; and yet it is a striking fact that 
there should be such a tradition, and that amidst the variety of 
modifications the original identity should still be perceptible. 
Christian apologists have found in the resemblances a presump- 
tion of its being derived from the original revelation, and in the 
consent of the various human families, combined with the ma- 
nifest superiority and historic character of the account in 
Genesis, a proof of the Divine origin of the Mosaic Kecord, 
and of the unity of the human race.§ Modern theology, on the 



* Suidas in voc. Tv$pi\via. 

t Zend A vesta, Kleuker. p. 19 ; 
Anquetil du Perron, torn. ii. 348 ; Bur- 
nouf, Yacna, torn. i. p. 297. 

% Knobel on Genesis, p. 6. 



§ Grotius 'deVeritate,' who has given 
an ample collection of ancient testimo- 
nies, lib. i. § xvi. Faber, 'Horae Mo- 
saic^,' vol. i. p. 17-40. 



190 AIDS TO FAITH. . [ [Essay V. 

contrary, teaches that the Mosaic cosmogony is only the Hebrew 
form of the original myth, bearing the palm indeed on account 
" of its simplicity, dignity, and sublimity," but still unhistoric 
in its relation, and in consistent with the results of modern cri- 
ticism and science. 

To discuss all the details of criticism would require volumes. 
But one alleged result, often stated in an off-hand, popular way, 
asserted with unhesitating confidence, and repeated as absolutely 
certain, requires notice. It is said that in the Book of Genesis 
there are some portions in which God is spoken of exclusively 
as Elohim — in others exclusively as Jehovah [the Loed in the 
Authorized Version]. This exclusive use of the one Divine 
name in some portions, and of the other in other portions, it is 
said, characterizes two different authors, living at different 
times, and consequently Genesis is composed of two different 
documents, the one Elohistic, the other Jehovistic, which more- 
over differ in statement, and consequently that this book was 
not written by Moses, and is neither inspired nor trustworthy. 
Now, not to notice the defectiveness of this statement as to the 
names of God, who in Genesis is also called El, El Elyon, Most 
High God ; El Shaddai, God Almighty ; Adonai, Lord ; nor the 
fact that in other books, as Jonah and the Psalms, the same 
exclusiveness is found ; let us look at this statement as "a sup- 
posed result of criticism. It is generally urged as if on this 
point critics were all of one mind, agreed in the portions which 
are Elohistic or Jehovistic — unanimous as to the characteristic 
differences of style in the separate portions, in fact as if the 
theory came with the authority of universal consent. Were 
this the case, it would necessarily carry with it great weight. 
For, though the conclusions of criticism differ from the demon- 
strations of pure science and the inferences of induction, yet, 
when unanimously adopted by those competent to judge, they 
deservedly influence the minds of all reasonable persons. But 
this is not the case in the present theory. The popular statement 
given above does not represent the true state of the case. The 
fact is, that there is here the greatest variety of opinion, and 
the modifications of the above apparently simple theory are so 
widely divergent, as either to shake the value of the criticism, 
or throw a dark shade of doubt on the competence of the critics. 
In the first place, there is a difference as to the extent to which 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATIOX. 191 



the theory is to be applied. Some confine it to the Book of 
Genesis ; others include Exodus to chapter vi ; others, as 
Rnobel, Bleek, and Ewald, assert that the Jehovistic and 
Elohistic differences can be recognized through the whole 
Pentateuch to the end of Joshua. Some, as J. D. llichaelis, 
Jahn, Tater, Hartmann, regard Genesis as a loose and un- 
systematic stringing together of disjointed fragments. 2. But 
passing these by, let us look at the state of the Elohistic and 
Jehoyistic theory, as stated by Bleek in his Introduction. 

i. In the year 1753, Astruc, a French physician, taught that 
the Book of Genesis is made up of twelve memoirs or documents, 
of which the two principal are the Elohistic and the Jehoyistic. 
From these Hoses composed the book, which he wrote in twelve 
columns. Copyists mixed these together, and hence the present 
form of Genesis. 

ii. Eichhorn asserted that the present Book of Genesis is 
based upon two pre-Mosaic documents, distinguished by Elohini 
and Jehovah, and that the author, in relating any event, selected 
that document in which the fullest account was contained. 
Sometimes the accounts are mixed together. Some other docu- 
ments were consulted. 

iii. Ilgen supposes seventeen documents, but only three 
authors, one Jehovist, two Elohists, and is so acute in his scent 
as sometimes to divide even single verses between the three, 
and give to each his own. 

iv. De Wette's theory, in the first edition of his Introduction, 
is, that a continuous Elohistic document pervades and forms the 
basis of the whole book, and extends to Exod. vi. In this the 
author inserted what he found in one, or, probably, in several 
Jehovistic documents. 

v. Yon Bohlen believes in the same Elohistic basis, but 
denies the existence of Jehovistic documents. The author of 
the book in its present state is the Jehovist, so that only two 
persons are concerned. 

vi. Gramberg makes three authors, — the Elohist, the Jehovist, 
and the compiler, who does not scruple sometimes to substitute 
one Divine name for the other. 

vii. Ewald exhibits a variety of opinions : first, he began by 
holding the unity of Genesis, and proving it against both the 
document and the fragment hypothesis. His arguments have not 



192 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



yet been refuted, either by himself or others. Secondly, about 
ten years afterwards he taught that the basis of the Book of 
Genesis is an ancient writing, of which considerable remains are 
found in the whole Pentateuch, and which is distinguished by 
peculiarity of language, especially by the use of Elohim up to 
Exod. vi. 2. This author had incorporated into his book more 
ancient documents, as the Decalogue and Exod. xxi.-xxiii. 
At a subsequent period arose another work on the ancient 
history, which ascribed the use of Jehovah to patriarchal times. 
From this later work portions were inserted into the former by 
the author of the present Book of Genesis, so that here there 
are at the least four writers concerned. Thirdly, Ewald extended 
and modified this theory by supposing more than two treatments 
of the ancient history forming the contents of the Pentateuch, 
and the Book of Joshua. He ascribes Genesis in its present 
form to that writer, whom in his first edition he calls the fourth 
narrator, and in his second edition the fifth narrator of the 
primitive histories, who lived in the time of Jotham. This work 
had several predecessors ; according to the first edition, three ; 
according to the second, six. Three of these are Elohistic. 

viii. Hiipfeldt takes as the basis of our Genesis three inde- 
pendent historic works ; two Elohistic, one J ehovistic, and makes 
in addition a compiler. 

ix. Knobel believes in two documents : first, the Elohistic, 
forming the basis of the Pentateuch and of Joshua ; second, the 
Jehovistic, which again has two previous sources. There are, 
besides, free Jehovistic developments, in which the compiler 
sometimes followed hints in the two documents, sometimes 
popular tradition, and sometimes his own conceptions. 

3. This enumeration is far from exhausting the varieties, but is 
sufficient to show the want of unity. The reader will perceive 
that some assert one Elohistic document — others, two — others, 
three. In like manner some make one Jehovist ; some more. 
Some make the Jehovist identical with the compiler ; others 
make him a different person. Some make two, others three, 
others four, Ewald seven documents by different authors the 
materials of Genesis. Now every one can understand that 
there is a great difference whether the Elohistic and Jehovistic 
portions be assigned to one or be divided amongst two, three, or 
more persons. He who says that there is only one Elohist must 



Essay V.] 



THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 



193 



believe that in the whole Elohistic portion there is unity of style, 
tone, spirit, language. If there be two Elohists, then the former 
is mistaken as to the unity, and there must be two diversities of 
style ; but if there be three Elohists, then both first and second 
critics are mistaken, and there must be three different styles. 
The portions assigned to each must also be smaller. Let the 
three Elohists be A, B, C. The first critic says that the whole 
belongs to A. The second critic says, No ; part belongs to B. 
The third critic says part belongs to A, part to B, and part to 
C. And thus the most celebrated critics convict each other of 
false criticism. Hiipfeldt condemns Kaobel ; Ewalcl condemns. 
Hiipfeldt and Knobel ; Knobel condemns Ewald and Hiipfeldt. If 
Knobel's criticism is correct, Hiipfeldt's is worthless. If Ewald 
be right, the others must be deficient in critical acumen. 
They may all be wrong, but only one of the three can be right- 
But take into account all the other differences enumerated 
above, one supposing that the documents are pre-Mosaic, another 
that they were written in the times of Joshua or the Judges, 
another in the time of David, another some centuries later ; and 
how uncertain must the principles of their criticism appear, — how 
valueless their conclusions ! With such .facts can any sane 
person talk of the results of modern criticism as regards the 
Book of Genesis ? or be willing to give up the belief of centuries 
for such criticism as this ? 

It is self-evident that criticism leading to such inconsistent 
conclusions must be in a high degree imaginative : a little 
examination shows that it is also unreasonably arbitrary. In 
order to make out the theory that there are two authors, one of 
whom is known by the exclusive use of Elohim, and the other 
by the exclusive use of Jehovah, and that the former is more 
ancient than the latter, it is necessary to point out paragraphs 
in which those Divine names are exclusively used, and also to 
prove that the Elohist does not refer to the Jehovistic docu- 
ment ; for if the Elohist plainly refers to what the Jehovist 
has related, the latter cannot be posterior to the former, and the 
theory fails. Now, unhappily for the theory, the word J ehovah 
does occur in the Elohistic passages, and the Elohist does refer 
to the Jehovistic narrative. Thus in Genesis ii. 4, the two 
names occur together. " These are the generations of the 
heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day when 





194 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



Jehovah Elohim made the earth and the heavens." Now if 
this verse belongs to what precedes, then the following narrative, 
which has also the unusual union of the two names, was written 
by the Elohist, and the first three chapters are by one author. 
If it be written by the Jehovist, how comes it to have Elohim as 
well, and why does it differ both from Elohist and Jehovist 
documents by the union of the names ? Here is a difficulty 
which has divided all Germany, and arrayed Kationalist against 
Rationalist, and Orthodox against Orthodox, and for which there 
seems no hope of solution, unless violence be offered to the text, 
and men be persuaded, against the evidence of manuscripts and 
ancient versions, that the words " These are the generations of 
the heavens and the earth" stood originally as the heading 
before the first verse of the first chapter, and that the word 
Elohim in ii. 4 is an interpolation of the Jehovist. Take 
another example : — Genesis v. is said to be Elohistic, and it is 
certain that Mohim, God, occurs five times; but in verse 29 
appears the word Jehovah to disturb the theorist ; and not only 
is this word there, but the verse refers to the Jehovistic chapter 
iii. 17. What is to be done ? The verse stands in all the manu- 
scripts and ancient versions. But, if the Elohistic theory is to 
stand, it must be got rid of somehow. It is an interpolation, 
says the theorist; it was put in by the compiler. In like 
manner the theorists cut off chapter vii. 9 — 24 from its context, 
and say, It is Elohistic. But lo ! in verse 16 stands " Jehovah." 
The same canon of the old Socinian criticism is again applied ; 
the unwelcome word is an interpolation. One instance more. 
The xlixth chapter is said to belong to a long Elohistic portion. 
But in the 18th verse occur those words of Jacob, "I have 
waited for thy salvation, Jehovah." Again the same violence 
is repeated. The disturbing verse is an interpolation. Is this 
criticism ? Is it a fair and legitimate proceeding to alter the 
text, and that not once, but frequently,* in order to make it suit 
one's theory ? To discard the consent of manuscripts, ancient 
versions, all printed editions, and cry out, Interpolation, inter- 
polation, without any authority at all? There is no more 
certain sign of helpless prejudice or critical incompetence, than 
to have frequent recourse to violent and unauthorized alteration 
of the text ; and yet without this the theory of the Elohistic 
and J ehovistic documents, even if it were unanimously received 



Essay V.] 



THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 



195 



by modern critics, could not be made out. Arbitrary separations 
of what evidently belongs together, and unwarranted assertions 
of interpolation, prove its unsoundness. The variety of its modi- 
fications, one neutralizing the other, as has been shown above, 
demonstrates the uncertainty and untrustworthiness of the 
results. 

4. But the theory rests upon an assumption totally false, that 
the names Elohim and Jehovah are synonymous, and that they 
can be used indifferently, one for the other. The names are not 
synonymous, and cannot be so used. There is the same differ- 
ence between Elohim and Jehovah, as between Deus and Jupiter, 
or homo and Petrus, The one expresses the genus, the other 
stands for the individual, and is a proper name. Elohim answers 
to our own word Gf-od or Deity, and is, therefore, used of false 
Gods as well as of the true. Jehovah stands for the personal, 
living, self-revealing Being, and is explained in those two pas- 
sages, Exod. iii. 14, "I am that I am ;" and xxxiv. 6, when, the 
Lord having said, " I will proclaim my name before thee," pro- 
claimed "Jehovah, Jehovah, God [El] merciful and gracious, 
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth ;" and can 
therefore be applied to none but the one true and eternal God, 
as is said, " I am Jehovah ; that is my name, and my glory will 
I not give to another." This distinction is strongly marked in 
the words of Elijah, « If Jehovah be Elohim, follow Him ; if 
Baal, then follow him." Here it would be impossible to inter- 
change Elohim and Jehovah, or to say, " if Baal be Jehovah." 
There is an essential difference in signification, and, though 
Jehovah is the true God, and the true God Jehovah, and there- 
fore sometimes either might be used, yet, in consequence of the 
essential difference, there are cases where there is a peculiar 
propriety in using one rather than the other ; and there are 
other cases in which one must be used, and the other cannot. As 
-Jehovah is the proper name of God, it does not take a genitive case 
or a suffix. It is, therefore, impossible to say in Hebrew, " the 
Jehovah of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," or, "My, thy, our 
Jehovah." In such cases, JElohim must be used, as "The 
Elohim, God of Abraham, &c." " My Elohim, my God, our 
Elohim, our God, &c." Again, as Jehovah signifies the self- 
revealing, that word cannot occur in the mouth of those to whom 
JEe has not revealed himself, nor, ordinarily, in the mouth of 

o 2 



196 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay Y. 



Hebrews speaking to such ; and, therefore, when Moses and 
Aaron use it to Pharaoh, they add " the God of Israel " to make 
it intelligible. But still Pharaoh asks, " Who is Jehovah ? I 
know not Jehovah;" and they explain, " The Elohim, God, of 
the Hebrews hath met with us." There is no room here to go 
through and illustrate all the peculiarities of these Divine 
names. But what has been said is sufficient to show that the 
exclusive use of Elohim cannot be received as a characteristic 
mark to distinguish one author from the other, inasmuch as, in 
the cases above enumerated and others, the use of Elohim is 
compulsory ; and neither Moses, nor Samuel, nor Isaiah, could 
in these cases leave out Elohim, and substitute Jehovah. Thus, 
in Gen. xl. 8, the word Elohim occurs once, when J oseph says to 
the Egyptian prisoners, " Do not interpretations belong to God, 
Elohim ?" Here Jehovah could not be used. Again, in xli., the 
word Mohim occurs eight times. In six of them the use was 
compulsory. In xliii. 23 it occurs twice with suffixes or geni- 
tive, and no other word could be used, and so in other instances.* 
And, therefore, the use of the word cannot be the characteristic 
peculiarity of one author. In the first chapter of Genesis, Moses 
might have used either Elohim or Jehovah, except in the 27th 
verse, where Mohim was compulsory. But in the opening of 
the Divine teaching, it was necessary to make clear that God is 
Creator, that the world was not eternal, nor independent ; and 
also that Jehovah is not one among many — not the national 
God of the Hebrews — but that Jehovah the Self-revealer, and 
Eloliim the Almighty Creator, are one. Therefore, in the first 
chapter, Elohim is used throughout. The Deity is the Creator. 
But in approaching that part of the narrative where the personal 
God enters into relations with man, and where Jehovah was 
necessary, Moses unites the names, and says, " Jehovah Elohim, 
the Lord God." Had he suddenly used Jehovah alone, there 
might have been a doubt as to whether Jehovah'w&s not different 
from Elohim. The union of the two names proves identity, and 
this being proved, from the fourth chapter on, Moses drops this 
union and sometimes employs Jehovah, sometimes Elohim, as 
occasion, propriety, and the laws of the Hebrew language require. 



* Ewald in his ' Composition cler I 306-391, have examined all the in- 
Genesis,' and Hengstenberg in his stances where the names occur, and ex- 
' Authentic des Pentateuchs,' vol. i. p. | plained the propriety or the necessity. 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 



197 



The use of these names, therefore, can prove nothing against 
the unity of the narrative. 

5. But, in truth, independently of all philological criticism, 
the unity of the first two chapters of Genesis may be proved by 
comparing one with the other. They do not contain two dis- 
tinct accounts of " the Creation." 

The second chapter does not narrate the creation of heaven or 
earth, or light, firmament, sun, moon, or stars, sea, or dry land, 
fish, or creeping things. The second chapter, therefore, is so far 
from being a cosmogony, that it is not even a geogony, and, 
therefore, the fourth verse of the second chapter, " These are 
the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were 
created, in the day that the Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) made 
the earth and the heavens/' cannot be the title or summary of 
what follows, but are an exact recapitulation of what is narrated 
in the first chapter. They mention first the creation of " the 
heavens and the earth;" second, the making of "the earth and 
heavens " in the very order in which the process of creation is 
related in that chapter, but of which not one word is said in what 
follows. The second chapter is obviously not an account " of 
the creation," but of the particulars of the formation of man, 
and his early history. Ewald said long ago, " The aim of the 
first connected narrative (ch. i. 1 — ii. 3) is to exhibit God as the 
Creator of the universe. . . The author then passes over 
from the perfected picture of the created universe, to that which 
must have been to him, as to all writers of history, the most 
worthy of note, to the history of man. Yet he closes the first 
picture with the words (ii. 4), ' These are the generations of 
the heavens and of the earth.' " * The second chapter is, there- 
fore, an integral part of a relation contained in the three first 
chapters, connected with the chapter by verse four, and pre- 
paring for the account of the Fall by telling us beforehand of 
Paradise, of the tree of knowledge, the prohibition to eat of it, 
and of the formation of the woman. Indeed, most recent writers 
admit, that whether there be different sources or not, the author 
has formed them into one narrative ; there cannot, therefore, be 
contradiction. There are differences to be explained by the 



* * Composition der Genesis,' p. 192, 
3. To this division Ewald adheres, as 
appears from his Essays on the subject 



in his « Jahrbuch ' for 1848, p. 77, and 
1849, p. 132, 



198 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



different objects which the author had in view. In the first, his 
object was to give an outline of the history of the universe ; in 
the second, to relate the origin and primitive history of man, so 
far as it was necessary, as a preparation for the history of the 
Fall. In the former, therefore, all the steps of creation 
are treated in chronological order. In the latter, only so much 
is alluded to as is necessary for the author's purpose, and in the 
order which that purpose required. 

6. So much for modern criticism. But the new theology also 
asserts that the Mosaic cosmogony is contradicted by the dis- 
coveries and progress of science, and that, therefore, Moses 
could not have been inspired. This is a straightforward objec- 
tion, deserves a fair and full consideration, and ought not to be 
met with what objectors can only regard as evasions. Such are 
the assertions, that the first chapter of Genesis is poetry, or a 
series of seven prophetic visions,* or the mere clothing of a 
theological truth. To urge such suppositions is not to defend 
the ark of God, but to abandon it to the enemy. If the first 
chapter of Genesis be poetry, or vision, or parable, it is not 
historic truth, which is just what objectors assert. There are in 
this chapter none of the peculiarities of Hebrew poetry. The 
style is full of dignity, but it is that of prose narrative. There 
is no mention of prophetic vision, no prophetic formula em- 
ployed. It is not said, " The vision which Moses saw," nor " I 
lifted up my eyes and behold." The prophet or historian is 
kept entirely out of sight, and the narrative begins at once with- 
out any preface, " In the beginning God created the heavens 
and the earth," and then goes to the account of Paradise, the 
birth of Cain and Abel, &c, without any break or note of tran- 
sition from vision to history. The Book of Genesis is history. 
It is the historical introduction to the four following books of 
the Pentateuch, or, rather, to all following revelation, and the 
first chapter, as the inseparable beginning of the whole, must be 
historical also. When the Lord recapitulates its contents in 
the Fourth Commandment, and makes it the basis of the 
ordinance of the Sabbath, He stamps it as real history. .To 
suppose a moral, or even a ceremonial command, based upon a 
poetic picture, or a vision, or an ideal narrative, would be 



* So Kurz, and after him, Hugh Miller. 



Essay V.] 



THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 



199 



absurd. The Lord also treats " the first chapters of Genesis " as 
real and authoritative history, when He makes Gen. i. 27, and 
ii. 23, 24, the foundation of His doctrine concerning marriage 
and divorce. As history, therefore, they must be received, what- 
ever difficulties that reception may involve. Some, indeed, 
hold that in reading the Bible, a distinction is to be made 
between statements relating to religion, and those relating to 
physics, that the former are to be received, and the latter dis- 
regarded, as " The purpose of revelation is to teach man what 
he cannot find out by his unassisted reason, but not physical 
truths, for the discovery of which he has faculties." But, what are 
we to do when a truth is both religious and physical, such as 
" God created the heavens and the earth ?" And how are we to 
distinguish between what can be and what cannot be discovered 
by man's natural faculties ? On the one hand, the leading in- 
tellects of Germany are still disputing about the eternity of the 
universe, and the relation of the finite to the absolute ; and on 
the other, Deists and Theists, and Bationalists, teach that all 
religious and moral truth can be discovered, and has been dis- 
covered, by man's natural powers — can be known in no other way, 
and that, therefore, revelation is unnecessary. Besides, if the 
first chapter of Genesis be not given to teach us the facts and 
order of creation, why is it there at all in all its circumstan- 
tiality? Are Ave to believe that Divine revelation begins 
with an unscientific misstatement of physical truth ? If the 
first chapter be the offspring of human error, where does Divine 
truth begin ? This principle raises many new difficulties, and 
removes none. We, therefore, adhere to the plain grammatical 
statement, as a Divine revelation of the origin of the universe, 
not yet superseded by the theories of the speculative philosophy, 
nor antiquated by the discoveries of modern science. 

7. The first supposed difficulty in the Mosaic statement is the 
age of the world. According to the teachings of Geology and 
Astronomy, the existence of the heavens and the earth is to be 
reckoned by myriads of thousands of years. According to Moses, 
it is alleged, they are of yesterday. To know whether this diffi- 
culty is real, it is first necessary to know what Moses has actually 
said. And here it is not intended to propose anything new, but to 
revert to the ancient exposition of the phrase, " In the begin- 
ning," for upon this the question really turns. The first pro- 



200 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



position is " In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth," and here it is necessary to observe that Heshith, the 
Hebrew word for "beginning," is in the original without the 
definite article. Moses says, " In Keshith [not in the Meshith], 
Elohim created the heavens and the earth." The antiquity and 
correctness of this reading are proved by the Septuagint, Chaldee, 
and Syriac versions. 

LXX. 'Ei/ apxfi, Chaldee VDlpl. Syriac ^juj^j^ and so 

it is also found in the Evangelist's allusion, John i. 1. The uni- 
formity of the reading, and the care with which it had been pre- 
served for centuries — notwithstanding the natural temptation to 
supply the article — testify that there was an uniform traditional 
meaning attached to it, different from that possible, if the word 
had the article. What this meaning is, is plainly seen in the 
-first verse of St. John's Gospel. Now that Socinian exegesis is 
a thing of the past, all divines, English and foreign, agree that 
St. John here makes a pointed reference to Gen. i. 1, and that in 
the words ev apxv> " ^ n the beginning," he expresses Duration or 
Time, previous to Creation. So Dean Alford " 'Ez/ apxv = Trpb 
-tov tov KocrfjLov elvai." " In the beginning " is equivalent to 
Before the world was." Tholuck says that the phrase expresses 
" Eternity a parte ante." Meyer also takes it of duration before 
time, and translates it Vorzeitlichkeit (pre-temporality), and says 
that it is equivalent to the Septuagint version of Prov. viii. 23, 
•"In the beginning, before he made the earth ;" and to the words 
of our Lord " Before the world was ;" and of St. Paul " Before the 
foundation of the world " (Ephes. i. 4). De Wette has nearly 
the same words and the same references. Liicke also says that 
the phrase " In the beginning " includes the idea of pre-mimdane 
existence (des Vorweltliclien), and answers to " Before the world 
was " (John xvii. 5). All are agreed that " Beginning " refers to 
duration or time, not to order, and that it is indefinite in its sig- 
nification, and may mean previous eternity, or previous time, 
according to the subject spoken of.* They who believe that St. 
John was inspired will receive his interpretation of the first 
words of Genesis as infallibly correct, and therefore interpret 
them there as in the Gospel. But even if St. John be regarded 



* Similar is the meaning of the I the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
•words in the Doxology, " As it was in J be." 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOKD OF CREATION. 20 L 

as an ordinary writer asserting an important truth, his adoption 
of the interpretation proves that it was known to the Jews of* his 
time, and this is further proved by the nearly contemporary tes- 
timony of the Targum. 

Its author Onkelos gives the same meaning, and proves that 
it was then the received interpretation. ■ For the Hebrew 
BWeshith. he gives B'hadmin (VDIpH) in antiquities, or former 
times. The word K'dam, equivalent to the Hebrew Kedem, 
signifies, as Buxtorf says, " ante, antiquitas, prioritas, principium." 
In the plural number, as Onkelos here has it, it signifies, not 
order, but time, " ancient times, former times, eternity." For ex- 
ample (Gen. xxviii. 19), " Luz was the name of the city 'pDlp^'O, 
from antiquities, or former times." Again (Ps. lxviii. 33), " To 
him that rideth upon the heavens of heavens of antiquity," the 
Chaldee has VDIptel, " that were from antiquities, or former 
times," which our translators followed, and have rendered, " the 
heavens of heavens which were of old." Again (Deut. xxxiii. 27), 
" The Eternal God (literally, the God of antiquity or priority) ;" 
Onkelos has, " The God who is from antiquities, VOTp^Dl." 
Here the word is applied to eternity.* When, therefore, On- 
kelos translates the first word of Gen. i. 1. by B'kadmin in the 
plural, and without the article, he meant, in antiquities, in 
former times or duration, of old. 

The LXX. use ev apxv ^ n ^ ne same w r ay, and thereby prove 
that this interpretation was far more ancient than Onkelos. 
Thus, in Ezek. xxxvi. 11, they employ dpxfi to render Kadmali 
[former state), and give as the parallel efxirpoaOev for Rishah, 
nearly related to Beshith. Karoi/aco ty-ta? &>9 to ev dpxfi v/^cov, 
jcal ev TTOLTjcrG) vpLas wcnrep To, efjarpoaOev VflCOV. 

Again, in Prov. viii 23, they apply it to express duration an- 
tecedent to creation. Upb rou aiwvo? eOefieXiwae //,e* ev apxv ^po 
tov rrjv yrjv iroirjaaL. 

In Deut. xxxiii. 15, it signifies antiquity. For " ancient 
mountains," literally " mountains of antiquity," the LXX. have 
a,7rb Kopv(f>ri<; opecov parallel to flovvcov devdcov. Accord- 

ing, then, to the LXX., " in the beginning" means "informer 
duration, of old." 

This is also the meaning of the Hebrew. The w r ord Beshith 



* Compare Jonathan on Micali v. 2. 



202 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



having, according to its form, an abstract meaning, and coming* 
from Rosh or Resh, head, signifies first of all, as Gesenius says, 
" the being head ; " and, therefore, applied to rank or quality, 
would express " superiority " — to order, " priority," like its 
synonym Dip, whose first meaning is priority — to time, " an- 
teriority. ,} To " former time," " state at a former time," it refers 
in Job xlii. 12, " The Lord blessed the latter end of Job more 
than his beginning," where the LXX. translate more exactly, 
6 Be Kvpuos ev\6<yr)cre ra ea^ara 'Ia>/3 t) to, e/JbirpoaOev, and so 
Hirzel has " JTHnN, die spatere, JTOK"), die friihere Lebenszeit." 
So in Jer. xxviii. 1, " in the beginning (Reshith) of the 
reign of Zedekiah," beginning does not mean the first day, 
nor the first year, but the former part of his reign, as the 
prophet immediately adds, " in the fourth year." This is also 
the meaning in Isai. xlvi. 10, " declaring the end from the 
beginning," properly, " declaring futurity from former time," as 
is explained by the following clause — " and from ancient times 
the things which are not done." According, then, to the 
Hebrew, the meaning of the first verse of Genesis is, "In 
Reshith (anteriority), i. e., in former times, of old, God created 
the heavens and the earth ;" and the article is omitted to ex- 
clude the application of the word to the order of creation. This 
is also the sense given in other words by the Psalmist (cii. 26). 
"Of old (D'OB 1 ?* formerly) hast thou laid the foundation of 
the earth." 

The sum, then, of all that has been said is, that the words ; 
" In the beginning," refer to " time or duration," not to order — 
and thus, therefore, the first verse does not mean, " At first God 
created the heaven and the earth," nor, " In the beginning of 
creation he created the heavens and the earth," but " Of old, in 
former duration, God created the heavens and the earth." How 
long ago is not said. The Hebrew word is indefinite, and 
can include millions or milliards of years just as easily as 
thousands. The statement of Moses is, therefore, not contrary 
to the discoveries of geology, which alleges the earth to have 
existed for myriads of years before the creation of man. Moses's 
words are big enough to take in times indefinite, exceeding the 
powers of human comprehension. They also answer the more 



* Compare Isa. xli. 26, where D^D is parallel to C^fcOID. 



Essay V.] 



THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CREATION. 



203 



ancient objectors, who found it absurd that God created nothing* 
in previous eternity, and had remained inactive until a few 
thousand years ago.* The words of Moses, rightly understood, 
say just the contrary. They leave " the when " of creation un- 
defined. 

8. But though thus comprehensive as to the time, they are 
precise as to the fact of creation. Moses says " God created,'' and 
Bara, the word here used, is peculiar. There are three words 
employed in the Old Testament in reference to the production 
of the world — Bard) he created ; Yatzdr, he formed ; Asdh, he 
made — between which there is this difference, that the two last 
may be, and are, used of men. The first word Bard is never 
predicated of any created being, angel or man, but exclusively 
appropriated to God, and God alone is called Bore MQ2L Creator- 
Creation is therefore, according to the Hebrew, a Divine act — 
something that can be performed by God alone. In the next 
place, though, according to its etymology, it does not necessa- 
rily imply a creation out of nothing, it does signify the Divine 
production of something new, something that did not exist 
before. See Numb. xvi. 30 ; Jer. xxxi. 22. And therefore 
Gesenius says, in his ' Thesaurus,' " In that common disputation 
of interpreters and theologians concerning the creation out of 
nothing, some appeal to this word [Bara] as if it could be in- 
ferred from its etymology, or proper signification, that in the 
first chapter of Genesis, not a creation out of nothing, but a 
conformation of eternal matter is taught. But, from what has 
been said, it will be abundantly plain, that the use of this verb 
in Kal is altogether different from its primary signification, and 
that it is more used of new production (see Gen. ii. 3) than of 
the conformation and elaboration of matter. But that in the 
first verse of Genesis the first creation of the world out of 
nothing, and in a rude and unformed state, and in the remainder 
of the first chapter the elaboration and disposition of the recently 
created mass is set forth, is proved by the connection of things 
in this whole chapter. Thus, also, the Kabbis (as may be seen 
in Aben Esra to Gen. i. 1) say * that creation is a production of 
something from nothing.' " This is also the explanation given in 



* See Augustine ' de Civit. Dei/ Lib. 1 also ' Origen de Principiis,' iii. 5, and 
xi. 4, 5 ; 4 Confess.' xi. 10. Compare | Calvin's ' Commentaries on Genesis.' 



204 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



the Psalms. In Ps. cxlviii. 5 we read, " For He, He commanded, 
and they were created." The parallel passage (Ps. xxxiii. 9) 
says, "For He, He said, and it existed (VD). He, He com- 
manded, and it stood." It is true that the how of creation, the 
link between the Divine will and the realisation, is not made 
known. Perhaps to finite minds it is incomprehensible. But, 
notwithstanding, the word creation is more than a name for our 
ignorance of the mode of production. It teaches that neither 
the world, nor the matter of which it is composed, is eternal or 
self-existent — that the universe is not a pantheistic emanation, 
but a work of the Divine will and power ; and this Mosaic doc- 
trine, in accordance with all sound reason, has not been shaken 
by any discoveries or theories of science. Even though the 
nebulous theory were demonstrably certain ; though all the 
starry hosts were mere agglomerations of elementary matter, 
which was once diffused like " an universal fire-mist " throughout 
all space, and impressed with fixed laws, or endowed with self- 
evolving powers, yet there must be a maker of that fire-mist and 
its fifty-five elementary substances — there must be a lawgiver, 
who imposed those laws, or communicated those powers, and 
who produced that change of temperature, without which agglo- 
meration would have been impossible — that is, there must have 
been a Creator, and therefore the words of Moses would still be 
true, " God created the heavens and the earth." ft Sic philo- 
sophi debuerunt, si forte eos primus aspectus mundi conturba- 
verat, postea cum vidissent motus ejus finitos et sequabiles, om- 
niaque ratis ordinibus moderata, immutabilique constantia, 
intelligere inesse aliquem non solum habitatorem in hac celesti 
ac divina domo, sed s etiam Eectorem et Moderatorem, et tan- 
quam Architectum tanti operis tantique muneris." * 

9. In order to understand the Mosaic narrative, the next thing 
to be considered is the meaning of the phrase " The heavens and 
the earth," and the purpose of the whole verse. Some take it 
as a title or summary of the contents of the chapter. But this 
view is forbidden by the conjunction "and," with which the 
second verse begins. " In the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth. 2. And the earth was without form, and 
void." This " and " makes the second verse a continuation of 



* 4 De Nat. Deorum,' Lib. ii. c. 35. 



Essay V.] 



THE MOSAIC RECOKD OF CREATION. 



205 



the narrative begun in the first. The proposition, " And the 
earth was without form, and void/' implies that the earth was in 
existence, and that something had been said of it with which 
the " and " is the connecting link. Besides, if the first verse be 
not a part of the narrative, but only a heading, the creation of 
the earth is not mentioned at all in the narrative itself. The 
first verse is, therefore, not a summary, but a part of the history 
of creation. 

Others suppose that the first verse describes the creation of the 
materials out of which heaven and earth were afterwards formed. 
But this is simply to put into the verse what is not there. " Heaven 
and earth " never mean materials, and if they did, that meaning 
would not agree with the context. The connecting " and " of 
the second verse shows that the earth of the second verse is that 
earth spoken of in the first verse, not the materials. Moses is 
very precise and clear in his statements, and as he names " the 
heavens and the earth," no expositor 6afc- legitimately give that 
phrase a meaning which it has not in any other place in the Old 
Testament. The first question then, here, is, what Moses 
intended by " the heavens," for the word is plural, and has no 
singular in Hebrew. That something different from the firma- 
ment is intended is plain from the order of the narrative. It is 
not sa'id, God made the earth and the heavens, but of old, in 
former duration, God made the heavens and the earth. Then it 
is related that the earth was without form, and void ; darkness 
was upon the face of the deep ; the Spirit of God moved upon 
the face of the waters ; God said, Let there be light. Then, on 
the second day, God made the firmament, and called it heavens. 
The heavens of the first verse were made in former duration, 
before the moving of the Spirit, before the appearance of light. 
The heavens of the seventh and eighth verses were made on 
the second day, after the earth and after light. The difference 
of time proves a difference of subjects, just as there is a difference 
between the earth of the first verse, which means the whole 
terraqueous globe, and the earth of the tenth verse, which is 
only the dry land. And this difference between the heavens of 
the first verse and the firmament is strongly marked in the 
fourth verse of the second chapter — " These are the generations 
of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the 
day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." In 



206 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



the first half reference is made to the primitive creation, and 
therefore the order of the first verse is preserved. In the latter 
lialf reference is made to the creation of the earth in its empty 
state, and the subsequent making of the firmament ; and, there- 
fore, earth is put first, before heavens, an inversion that must 
be intentional, as the phrase " heaven and earth " is in Scrip- 
ture a standing formula, but the inversion " earth and heaven " 
occurs only once more in the Bible (Ps. cxlviii. 13). The first 
expression, "the heavens and the earth," comprehends all 
created things, the universe ; the second, " earth and heavens," 
takes in only the earth and that portion of the universe imme- 
diately connected with it. The object of the historian is first to 
assert that God is the Creator of all created things, invisible as 
well as visible ; then to narrate the manner in which this earth 
was prepared for the abode of man by the same Almighty 
Being, so as to leave no room for the eternity of matter, nor yet 
for two Creators, one of whom made the high and holy spiritual 
world, the other this lower and material world. The Jews 
knew that there were other heavens, as those where angels 
dwell, mentioned xxviii. 12-17, whither, perhaps, Elijah was 
carried (2 Kings ii. 1), and the heavens where is the throne of 
God (Ps. xi. 4 ; ciii. 19), called also the heavens of heavens. That • 
these heavens and the angels were made before the earth and 
the firmament appears from Job xxxviii. 7, " When the morning 
stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." 
They are, therefore, included in the statement of the first verse, 
Of old God made the heavens and the earth," as they certainly 
are in the first verse of the second chapter, where Moses, 
summing up the entire work of creation of the universe, the 
primitive creation and the six days' work, says, " Thus the 
heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." 
The expression " host of heaven" sometimes means the heavenly 
bodies, sometimes angels : thus, in Deut. xix. 4, it evidently 
refers to the former ; in 1 Kings xxii. 19, Isa. xxiv. 21, Ps. 
cxlviii. 2, it as plainly refers to the latter, who are called "Jeho- 
vah's host " (Josh. v. 14, 15), and " God's host " (Gen. xxxii.), 
where the corresponding word PUIID is used. Therefore, in 
this summing up of creation, " all the host of them " is men- 
tioned to include angels, often referred to in this Book of 
Genesis, and to teach that they were not independent beings, 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CREATION. 



207 



but creatures of God. According to the Bible, then, this earth 
is not the centre of the universe. Long before it was fashioned 
for man there were heavens, and morning stars, and angels ; 
regions more glorious than the earth, heavens more ancient 
than the firmament, heavenly inhabitants who excel in strength, 
and who looked on in wonder and adoration when they beheld 
the earth fashioned by the Creator. The ken of Moses and the 
Hebrews was not limited to this earth, nor their idea of dura- 
tion to the time that man has existed. They knew that the 
earth in its present condition was later than the heavens and 
their host, and the human race young when compared with the 
angels of God. 

10. Yekse 2. — The next statement made by Moses is so far 
from being in opposition to the discoveries of science that it is an 
extraordinary anticipation of what geology teaches. It presents 
to us the earth before its habitation by man, covered with water, 
and utterly devoid of inhabitants or life. " The earth was [or, 
as others translate, had become*} desolation and emptiness, and 
darkness upon the face of the raging deep, and the Spirit of 
God brooding upon the face of the waters." Very similar are 
the statements of geologists, who, though believing that the 
• earth was first in a state of igneous fusion, suppose that before 
the various formations and deposits began, it was first entirely 
covered with water. So Pfaff says, " We soon perceive not only 
that by far the greatest part of our earth was under water, but 
that to water it owes its origin, and that under water the entire 
gradual formation of these mighty masses took place." And 
again, " The earth was at first a molten fiery sphere, over which 
existed a thick atmosphere, containing all the water of the 
earth. In consequence of cooling a firm crust was formed, 
which was everywhere uniformly covered by water, condensed 
in like manner by the same cooling process." t The conflicts 
between the waters and the fiery heat, as the crust of the earth 
was broken, fell in, or was upheaved, are vividly described by 
M. d'Orbigny, and his account answers well to the words of 
Moses, " The earth was desolation and emptiness, and darkness 



* Dathius. Post hsec vero terra 
facta erat vasta et deserta. 

t Pfaff's ' Schopfungsgeschiclite,' p. 
3 and 615. See also D'Orbigny, « Cours 



elementaire,' torn, ii., Fascic. i. 2G1 ; 
Lardner's ' Pre-Adamite Earth,' § 187 ; 
' Essays and Reviews,' p. 213, 14. 



208 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay Y. 



upon the face of the raging deep." It is not necessary to accept 
this theory of " a molten fiery sphere," as the Neptunists describe 
a somewhat similar state, produced by water only, and a sober 
though able author speaks of it only as a guess. " Geology 
. . . may guess at conditions of original igneous fluidity or 
aqueous plasticity in the mass, and may hint at some great law 
of secular contraction ; but it must be confessed that on these 
and similar points science is yet unable to offer anything like 
the certainty of demonstration."* But the great facts of the 
submersion of the earth, and its desolation and emptiness, were 
stated by Moses more than 3000 years ago, and his statements 
have not only not been disproved, but have been confirmed, by 
the deductions of modern scientific research. But how this state 
of " igneous fluidity or aqueous plasticity," and consequent deso- 
lation and emptiness, arose; whether God created the earth 
desolate and empty, or whether it became so in consequence of 
some mighty catastrophe, neither Neptunists nor Yulcanists can 
tell us, nor has Moses expressly declared, though the latter 
appears to some to be implied in his words. There seems to be 
a contrast between the state of the heavens and that of the 
earth. " Of old God created the heavens and the earth. And 
the earth was desolation and emptiness," not so the heavens. 
If Dathius's translation, " The earth had become desolation and 
emptiness," t be correct, it would follow this was not the earth's 
original state. How the change from the chaotic, the desolate 
and the empty, was effected, science cannot tell. Moses informs 
us that it was by the action of the Divine Spirit. " The Spirit 
of God, brooding on the face of the waters," not "the wind of 
God," as the verb rachaph [to brood] is never used of wind. 
" The Spirit streamed forth from God upon the chaos, commu- 
nicated to it life-power, and made it capable of development at 
God's bidding, and of bringing forth plants and animals. For, 
according to the Old Testament, the Spirit of God is the 
quickening principle of the world, and all life is an outgoing 



* Page's ' Advanced Text-book of 
Geology,' p. 25. 

f This translation is supported by 
the fact that the verb HTl is, in some 
twenty places, in this chapter correctly 
translated by yhofxai and fio, and not 
by eifil or sum, and has elsewhere, with- 



out a following ^, the same significa- 
tion, e.g. Isai. lxiv. 5, 9, where see 
Ewald, Zunz, and Kosenmiiller. That 
the earth was not originally desolate 
also seems to be implied in Isai. xlv. 18. 
" He created not the earth a desolation " 
[Tohu]. 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 



209 



from God ; according to Psalm civ. 30, even the life of the vege- 
table kingdom."* 

11. Veeses 3, and 14-19. — The next Mosaic statement is found 
in verses 3-5, "And God said, Let there be light, and there 
was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God 
separated between the light and between the darkness. And 
God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. 
And evening happened, and morning happened, one day,"t and 
has given occasion to many objections. Celsus found it strange 
that Moses should speak of days before the existence of the sun.J 
" How did God create the light before the sun ? " asked Voltaire. 
" How did He make the day before the sun was made ?"§ 
" Modern astronomy," says D. F. Strauss, "found it contrary to 
order, that the earth should not only have been created before 
the sun, but should also, besides day and night, have distinction 
of the elements and vegetation before the sun." |j " Light and 
the measurement of time are represented as existing before the 
manifestation of the sun, and this idea, although repugnant to 
our modern knowledge, has not in former times appeared 
absurd," is the objection of ' Essays and Eeviews and, as is 
evident, is not the result of modern science, having been 
broached already by Celsus. As, however, recent writers give 
modern science the credit of it, it becomes necessary to ask, 
what does modern science teach with regard to the relative ages 
of the earth and the sun? The answer is, Nothing, absolutely 
nothing as a scientific certainty. Whether sun and earth were 
created simultaneously, and in their present relations— or, 
whether the earth, already created, wandered within the range 
of solar attraction, or whether, after the sun existed, the earth 
was called forth within that range, science does not know. It 
has, however, without any reference to the Book of Genesis, 
proposed a theory, which has been accepted by some of the 



* Knobel in loc. Comp. Gesenius, 
' Thesaurus,' in Rad. S^m. " De Spiritu 
Dei, qui rudi creationis moli incubabat 
fovens et vivificans.'' 

t The exact force of the Hebrew 
words, especially of the verb HTl fio, is 
more apparent in the LXX. than in our 
Authorized Version. Kal elrrev 6 6e6s 
T(!vr}9-f)Ta} <£d>s, Kal iyevero (pws. Kal 
eioev 6 6ebs rb (pas on na\6v, Kal 



Si€xcopi(T€V 6 Qebs ava [liffov rod (pwrbs 
Kal ava jxecrov rod o~k6tovs' Kal eKaXeaev 
6 Oebs rb (pais 7}{x4pav Kal rb gkotos e«a- 
Ae<re vvKra, Kal fyeVero kaivipa Kal iy4- 
vero irpcoi, rj/xepa fj.ia. 

% Origen 'contra Celsum,' vi. 60, 
torn. i. 678. 

§ Voltaire's Works, vol. xxxiii. 403. 

|| * Glaubenslehre,' vol. i. p. 622. 

f P. 219. 

P 



210 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay Y. 



most scientific men of these days as highly probable.* Had it 
been devised for the express purpose of removing the supposed 
difficulties of the Mosaic account, it could hardly have been 
more to the purpose. It supposes that the whole solar system 
was originally one mass of vapoury or nebulous matter, which, 
according to the laws of gravitation, assumed the form of an im- 
mense sphere. This sphere received (from without) an impulse 
which caused it to revolve on its axis from west to east. In 
consequence of this revolving motion, it became flattened at the 
poles and swollen in the equatorial region, and in consequence 
of the greatness of the centrifugal force at the equator, and the 
contemporaneous condensation and contraction of the nebulous 
mass, a free revolving ring, similar to that of Saturn, detached 
itself in the region of the equator. This ring not being of 
uniform density, and in consequence of contraction, broke in 
one or more places, and these fragments, in obedience to the 
laws of gravitation, became a sphere or spheres, that is, a 
planet, or planets, all necessarily revolving from west to east, 
round the parent mass. Another ring was formed in like 
manner, and another planet came into existence, and so on 
until the whole solar system was complete. A similar process 
took place with regard to some of the planets, and thus they 
got their moons, t 

Now, according to this theory, not only the earth, but all the 
planets of our system, existed before the sun in its present con- 
dition. As these planets are now not self-illuminating, it may 



* Of the theory in its present form 
La Place is the author. Perhaps the 
first suggestion came from Sir W. Her- 
schel. It has been adopted by the 
great German astronomer, Madler, and 
extended to comets. It has been 
defended by Pfaff, and its truth has 
been taken for granted by Humboldt, 
' Cosmos,' i. 85, 90, iv. 163. It is also 
advocated by the author of ' Vestiges of 
the Natural History of Creation.' 

t La Place, * Exposition du Systeme 
du Monde,' 6 feme edition, note vii. pp. 465 
andsqq. ; Pfaff s ' Schopfungsgeschichte,' 
Kap. xiii. ; Humboldt's ' Cosmos,' as 
above. This theory is also applied by 
La Place and others to account for the 
zodiacal light. M. Plateau has furnished 
an ingenious experimental verification. 
He mixed alcohol and water until the 



mixture was of the same specific gravity 
as oil. The mixture was then put into 
a glass box, and a certain quantity of 
oil introduced, which immediately took 
the form of a globe. He now applied an 
axis, which passed through the axis of 
the oil globe, and caused the box to ro- 
tate rapidly. In consequence of the 
rotation the oil globe flattened at the 
poles and swelled out at the equator. 
A more rapid motion disengaged a ring 
of oil, revolving in the same direction 
as the oil globe. This ring broke, and 
the fragments formed globes or planets 
rotating on their axes, and revolving 
round the parent globe. See Pfaff, p. 
318; also • Vestiges of the Natural His- 
tory of Creation/ reprint of sixth edi- 
tion, p. 11-14. 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EE COED OF CREATION. 



211 



be supposed that the rings, when detached from the original 
nebulous mass, were dark also, and therefore that the equato- 
rial matter of the parent nebulous sphere of which they were 
composed was also devoid of light — that therefore the sun did 
not receive its luminous atmosphere until all the planets had 
been detached. But, until this luminous atmosphere existed, 
they could not derive their light from the sun. If, on the other 
hand, it be supposed that these detached rings were luminous, 
and that the planets formed from them were luminous also, then 
the planets had a light of their own, independent of the sun. 
But however that be, so much follows from this theory, that the 
earth existed before the residuary parent globe could be called 
the sun, or could perform its office of luminary to the system. 
If the earth therefore had light during this period, it must have 
been derived from some other source. That this is possible 
cannot now be denied. The discoveries with regard to heat, 
combustion, electricity, galvanism, show that there may be 
light independent of the sun. It is also now generally received 
that the sun itself is an opaque body, and that solar light pro- 
ceeds from a luminous atmosphere by which it is surrounded.* 
The progress of science has, therefore, neutralized the objection 
that light could not exist before the sun. Indeed it has done 
more — it has proved the accuracy of the Mosaic language. 
Moses does not call the sun " Or, light," but " Madr, a place or 
instrument of light," a luminary, or candlestick,! just what 
modern science has discovered it to be. Thus, so far is the 
Mosaic doctrine of light from being opposed to recent discoveries, 
that if Moses had wished to describe the modern doctrine con- 
cerning light, he could not have expressed himself more 
happily, " Scripture does not say that God created the light, or 
made it, but said, * Let it be, and it was ! ' If, then, light be 
not a separate and definite body, but only vibrations or undula- 



* Arago's ' Astronomy,' p. 56, 57 ; 
Pfaff, p. 621 ; Humboldt's ' Cosmos,' iii. 
271, etc. ; Walker's ' Physical Constitu- 
tion of the Sun,' p. 6. The wonderful 
discoveries of Khchhoff and others in 
solar chemistry are supposed by some 
to confirm La Place's theory, and to 
prove that the earth was before the 
sim, and had a light of its own. 

f Knobel, in his Commentary, has 



" Lichtorte." For the meaning of nouns 
formed by prefixing 12, see Ewald's 
« Grammar,' § 337 and 339 :— " D may 
signify, first, that wherein anything 
happens, the place of action (the so- 
called D loci) ; . . . . secondly, the in- 
strument of action ; thirdly, the what 
of the action." Compare also Simonis 
' Arcanum Formarum,' p. 447-504 ; 
Gesenius's 4 Lehrgeb.' p. 494, § 14. 

p 2 



212 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



tions of ether, somehow set in motion, the sacred writer could 
not have expressed its appearance in words more beautiful or 
more agreeable to truth." * 

Now, this theory of La Place may or may not be true,t but it 
is an offspring of modern science, and implies, just like the 
Mosaic account, the pre-existence of the earth before the sun 
became the luminary of the system. It does, indeed, also imply 
the pre-existence of the great parent nebulous globe, but this is 
not contrary to the Mosaic account. Moses does not say that 
the body of the sun or moon and stars were created on the 
fourth day, but according to the Hebrew, " God said, Let there 
be light-holders in the firmament of the heaven, .... and let 
them be for light-holders in the firmament of the heaven to 
give light upon the earth, and God made the two great light- 
holders and God gave ]JV\ them in the firmament of 

heaven to give light upon the earth, and the stars." The 
Hebrew word, Asah, make, may signify " make ready, prepare, 
dress " (see Gesenius's f Lexicon,' in verb.). The creation of the 
sun or parent globe may be included in verse 1, and the work 
of the fourth day consisted in furnishing it with its luminous 
atmosphere. When this took place, and the sun began to shed 
its light, then the moon, and the earth's fellow planets, " the 
stars," of verse 16, became luminaries also. The stars of this 
sixteenth verse are certainly different from those morning stars 
of which Job speaks, which were in existence long before, and, 
as connected with the sun and moon, seem naturally to mean 
those belonging to the solar system, and which received then 
light on the fourth day, when the sun became luminous. 
Having thus seen how modern science proves that the earth 
and light might exist, and, according to scientific theory, pro- 
bably did exist before the sun, it is no longer difficult to con- 
ceive, how there might also be a measure of time. What that 
measure was, the length of that " one day," of which Moses 
speaks, it is now necessary to inqune. 



* ' Cosmogony of Moses,' by M. Mar- 
cel de Serres, Professor of Mineralogy 
and Geology at Montpellier, German 
edition, p. 45. Compare the language 
of St. Paul, 2 Cor. iv. 6. It is a curious 
fact that the Hebrew verb "im, which 
signifies "to flow," also signifies "to 



shine, give light." mrw, light. Job 
iii. 4. 

f Compare "Whewell's ' Indications of 
the Creator,' p. 54, 162, and his ' Philo- 
sophy of Discovery,' p. 304, 305 ; ' Plu- 
rality of Worlds,' p. 199. 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 



213 



12. The question, then, naturally arises, How are we to under- 
stand the word " day ? " Is it a -period of twenty-four hours, or 
is it an indefinite portion of time ? It is quite certain that the 
Almighty could not only arrange the earth in six ordinary days, 
but that He could create the whole universe by a momentary 
exertion of His power. The shortness of the time, therefore, is 
no valid objection. The contrary objection that six ordinary 
days are too long, and that instantaneous creation is more worthy 
of Omnipotence, is just as strong. But nature and Scripture 
both teach us that it has pleased God to work gradually. His 
purpose was to fill the earth with inhabitants, and yet only a 
single pair was created. He announced the Kedeemer in Para- 
dise, but 4000 years passed away before the fulness of the time 
was come. It is His will that the whole earth shall be filled 
with the knowledge of Himself; but the diffusion of that 
knowledge has been left to gradual preaching and human instru- 
mentality. So in nature, trees, animals, and men have small 
beginnings, and require time to attain to perfection. This twofold 
course of the Divine procedure, in grace and in nature, guards us 
against the necessity of supposing that the arrangement of the 
earth was of necessity sudden, or a series of instantaneous exhi- 
bitions of Omnipotence. The facts of creation, however, must 
be gathered from the Mosaic statement. Moses undoubtedly 
reckons six days. But it is an old and true observation, that 
in the Bible the word " day " often signifies undefined periods 
of time, as, " the day of the Lord," " the day of vengeance," 
" that day/' " the night is far spent, the day is at hand." In 
this narrative (ii. 4) the word takes in the whole time of the 
creative work. The first three days were certainly not measured 
by the interval between sunset and sunset, for as yet the sun 
was not perfect, and had no light. The first day consisted of an 
alternation of light and darkness. But how long the light 
lasted, and how long the darkness until the next dawn, is not 
said. That there was an alternation of light and darkness, is 
related in the words, " And God divided between the light and 
between the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the 
darkness He called Night." First there had been universal 
darkness. " Darkness was upon the face of the deep." Out of 
this darkness God caused the light to shine. " God said, Let 
there be light, and there was light." It might, then, be sup- 



214 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



posed that this light being as universal as the darkness had 
been, there was now only continued, uninterrupted light in the 
world, and no darkness more until the new order of things com- 
menced in the fourth day. The sacred historian guards against 
this supposition by relating that G-od divided between the light 
and the darkness, and that, in consequence of this division, 
evening happened, and morning happened, so that one stage of 
creation was divided from the other by an interval of darkness. 
The time of light in which the Divine work proceeded, He 
called Day, and the time of darkness He called Night.* It was 
not a day measured by the presence of the sun's light, nor a 
night measured by the absence of that light. There was light 
and there was darkness, and God called the light Day, and the 
darkness He called Night. The union of these two periods of 
light and darkness He calls " one day," " a second day," " a 
third day," to mark the distinctive breaks in the progress of the 
development of the world. In this fifth verse " day " is taken 
in two senses, — first, of the duration of the light ; and secondly, 
of the whole time of light and darkness together. But how 
long the light continued before it was evening, or how long the 
darkness continued before it was morning, or what was the 
duration of the two together, we are not told ; and so far there 
is nothing to cause us to conclude that the whole was equal to 
twenty-four hours. It is true that David Strauss t urges the 
mention of " evening and morning," and thence concludes that 
they must be common days ; and there is a general persuasion 
that Moses here reckons according to the usual custom of the 
Hebrews, from evening to evening, supposing that the original 
darkness is the first evening, and that the space of time occupied 
by it and by the light which succeeded, is described as the first 
day. But this mistake arises from confining the attention to 
the English translation, which says " And the evening and the 
morning were the first day." J But the Hebrew and the ancient 
versions have " And evening happened, and morning happened, 
one day." Now if the first day begins with the original dark- 



* Compare the words of our Lord, 
" I must work the works of Him that 
sent me, while it is day ; the night 
cometh when no man can work." 

t ' Glaubenslehre,' p. 624. 

% This is plainly the source of error 



in ' Essays and Reviews,' where it is 
said, " The space of time occupied by 
the original darkness and the light 
which succeeded, is described as the 
first day." P. 219. 



Essay V.] 



THE MOSAIC EE COED OF CEEATION. 



215 



ness, then the first day consists of the original darkness, the 
light, and the evening that followed, ending with the morning, 
and thus the first day would have an evening at the beginning 
and an evening at the end. The mention of morning, " evening- 
happened and morning happened," ought to have guarded 
against this mistake. Evening and morning do not together 
make a day, but only a part of a day. The whole day is not 
complete until the following evening. But that Moses does not 
here reckon from evening to evening is proved from the account 
of the first day. The evocation of light is the prominent object 
of the first day's work, but it is after this evocation of light that 
it is said " And there was evening, and there was morning, one 
day." If, therefore, the day began with the evening, light was 
created before that first day began, and there would be no 
account at all of what was done the first day. The first clay 
must, therefore, be reckoned as beginning at the appearance of 
light, and continuing through the evening to the dawn. The 
appearance of light, with the darkness that followed the 
evening until the next dawn, is the first day. With that dawn 
the second day begins. This mode of reckoning, unique in the 
Bible, and peculiar to this first chapter of Genesis, suggests that 
the days are peculiar too. To know the length of the first day, 
it would be necessary to know how long the light continued 
after its^first appearance until the evening came, and then how 
long from evening until the first dawn. But this is not told us. 
The ordinance concerning the reckoning of time, " Let them be 
for signs, and for seasons, and for days and for years," was not 
given until the fourth day, and could have no application until 
after the creation of Adam. Not by the sun, then, were the 
days measured, but by the light and darkness, which God called 
Day and Night, of the length of which we are not informed ; 
and, consequently, there is nothing in the text to compel us to 
restrict the days to the time of the earth's diurnal motion. If 
the length of the days is to be measured by that of the seventh, 
the day of God's rest, those days must be indefinite periods, for 
that day of rest still continues. It is said, chap. ii. 2, " And He 
rested on the seventh day from all the work which He had 
made," without any mention of evening and morning. The day 
of rest, therefore, still continues, and this is plainly expressed 
,and argued in the Epistle to the Hebrews, " Let us therefore 



216 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay Y. 



fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any 
of you should seem to come short of it," or, as some moderns 
translate, "Let us then be careful, lest as a promise to enter 
into His [God's] rest still remains, any of you appear remaining 
behind." On which words Stuart says, " In chapter iv. 1, he brings 
forward the assertion that the promise of entering into the rest 
of God still remains, addressed to the Hebrew Christians as it 
was to the Israelites of old. . . . But what is the rest in ques- 
tion ? Is it quiet possession of the land of Canaan ? No, says 
the Apostle. Believers now enter into the rest (yerse 3), i. e. 
(adds he) the same kind of rest as was anciently proffered. 
Moreover, God calls it KaTdiravalv /jlov, My rest, i. e. (adds he) 
such rest as God enjoyed, after He completed the creation of 
the world, consequently spiritual, heavenly rest. This is plain 
(as he goes on in verse 4) from what the Scripture says, Gen. ii. 
2, concerning the rest of God." According, then, to this decla- 
ration that God's rest or Sabbath still continues, the seventh 
day of creation is an indefinite period and the other days may 
be also. The six days are days of the Lord, God's days, as the 
first Sabbath was God's rest, and, therefore, as God rested on 
His seventh day, man is commanded to rest on his seventh day, 
and God blessed and sanctified it. 

13. But though the Mosaic language implies that the six days 
of which he speaks are six periods of time, it does not follow that 
they are to be identified with the six periods commonly received 
in geology. Indeed, to those who have no theory to establish, 
it is apparent that they do not agree, neither is it necessary 
that they should. That the Mosaic account is not contradicted 
by modern discovery is quite sufficient. The impossibility of 
identifying these periods is evident from the fact that of the 
work of two clays in the Mosaic account geology knows nothing, 
and astronomy nothing certain; namely, that of the first on 
which the light was called forth ; and of the fourth day, when 
the sun and the planetary system were perfected. Moses gives 
an outline of the history of creation, such as would be intelli- 
gible to those for whom he wrote, and suitable as an introduc- 
tion to Divine revelation, and on both accounts necessarily 
limited in the matter and brief in the narration. He, therefore, 
notices only those things necessary to a true religious system, 
or perceptible by men. After the original creation of heaven 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CREATION. 217 



and earth, and the condition of earth, he mentions the evoca- 
tion of light and the creation of the ether, in which the hea- 
venly bodies move, as effected in the first two days. Whether 
anything else was created in those two days, he neither affirms 
nor denies. So far therefore as the Mosaic record is concerned, 
these two days may include the whole of the primary, second- 
ary, and tertiary formations, with all their products, their flora 
and their fauna. The products of those periods, buried in the 
earth, were, so far as we know, utterly unknown to the Israelites 
and their contemporaries, and to mankind for many ages after. 
Even to ourselves the knowledge is recent. For Moses to 
mention them, was not only unnecessary, but would have been 
altogether out of place. Such details would have encumbered 
the outline, and turned away the attention from God the 
Creator to things at that time invisible and unintelligible. The 
object of the Mosaic narrative is to explain the origin of the 
universe and of its parts, as they were known or visible to men 
of that day. So soon, therefore, as he has mentioned the light 
and the ether, he advances at once to the preparation of the 
earth for man ; and thus the third day presents the dry land in 
its present state, with its flora differing from the preceding 
geological stages. Of this state of things, Page says : " At the 
close of the Pleistocene period the present distribution of sea 
and land seems to have been established ; the land presenting 
the same surface of configuration, and the sea the same coast 
line, with the exception of such modifications as have since 
been produced by the atmospheric, aqueous, and other causes, 
described in chap. iii. At the close of that period, the earth 
also appears to have been peopled by its present flora and 
fauna, with the exception of some local removals of certain 
animals, and the general extinction of a few species."* Accord- 
ing to the Mosaic account, the growth of grass, herb and fruit 
trees, begun on the third day, must have gone on through the 
fourth. Then on the fifth day the marine, and on the sixth the 
land animals of the present period were called into existence. 
The words of Moses, "Let the dry land appear," are in exact 
accordance with what geology relates. The rise of the ocean 



* 'Advanced Text-book,' p. 300. 



218 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



had buried the tertiary world in its waters. " The disruption 
of the earth's crust, extending W. 16° S., and E. 1G° K, 
through which the chain of the great Alps was forced up to its 
present elevation, which, according to M. d'Orbigny, was 
simultaneous with that which forced up the Chilian Ancles, a 
chain which extends over a length of 3000 miles of the western 
continent, terminated the tertiary age, and preceded immedi- 
ately the creation of the human race and its concomitant tribes. 
The waters of the seas and oceans, lifted up from their beds by 
this immense perturbation, swept over the continents with 
irresistible force, destroying instantaneously the entire flora and 
fauna of the last tertiary period, and burying its ruins in the 
sedimentary deposits which ensued. . . . When the seas had settled 
into their new beds, and the outlines of the land were perma- 
nently defined, the latest and greatest act of creation was 
accomplished by clothing the earth with the vegetation which 
now covers it, peopling the land and the water with the animal 
tribes which now exist, and calling into being the human race. . . . 
The most conspicuous condition which distinguishes the present 
from all past periods is the existence of the human race among 
its fauna, the attributes of which are so peculiar as to place it 
out of all analogy with the other classes of animals. Another 
striking physical difference between the present and all former 
periods consists in the different divisions of the earth's surface 
into climatological zones, each zone having its peculiar fauna 
and flora. In all former ages and periods, including those 
which immediately preceded the present, no traces of climatic 
difference have been found."* In all this there is nothing 
inconsistent with the Mosaic statement. There is one most 
striking and extraordinary coincidence: Moses represents the 
earth as existing for a long period before the sun became its 
source of light and heat. During that period there could have 
been no climatic difference, as this depends upon the position of 
the earth with reference to the sun. Now this exactly agrees 
with the conclusions of geology, which asserts, as we have seen, 
that before the human period there was no difference of cli- 
mate, that the earth was not dependent on the sun for its 



* Lardner's 4 Popular Geology,' § 553, 555, 561. 



Essay V.] 



THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 



219 



temperature, that there was apparently one uniform high 
temperature over the whole earth, and consequently that the 
flora and fauna of warm climates are found, in the prehuman 
period, in latitudes where they could not now exist. Here 
then is an instance of the extraordinary scientific accuracy of 
the Mosaic account. 

14. Another objection to Scriptural cosmogony is, that the 
Bible asserts that the earth is immovable. " The Hebrew records, 
the basis of religious truth, manifestly countenanced the opinion of 
the earth's immobility." * The proofs of this proposition are not 
taken from Moses, who says nothing on the subject, but from 
such passages as Ps. xciii. 1, — " The world also is established 
that it cannot be moved;" and Ps. civ. 5, — "Who laid the 
foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved for ever." 
See also Ps. cxix. 90, 91. According to this mode of interpre- 
tation, it can also be proved that the Hebrews also held that a 
pious man was an immovable fixture ; for it is said, Prov. x. 30, 
" The righteous shall never be moved," the same word in Hebrew. 
But this objection rests on simple ignorance of the Hebrew 
word translated "moved." This word, Mot signifies, 
as Gesenius says, " to waver, to shake, to totter," and, there- 
fore, it is applied to the feet of one in motion in Ps. xvii. 5 — 
"Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not;" 
or, as the margin has it, " be not moved." Can any one be 
found so silly as to suppose that David prayed that his feet 
might be immovably fixed ? The whole prayer implies motion, 
walking in the Lord's ways ; and the latter part of the petition 
is that his feet might not " totter," that he might not stumble. 
So far, therefore, are the above passages from declaring that the 
earth is immovable, that they necessarily imply its motion. 
" The world is established that it cannot totter," not even in that 
velocity of motion with which it compasses the sun. A totter, 
a slip, would be of dreadful consequence to its inhabitants ; but 
the Lord has so arranged and steadied its motions, that no totter 
is possible. The wonderful mode of its suspension in space, as 
well as that of the heavenly bodies, as necessarily implied in the 
Scriptural doctrine of an ethereal expanse, is also beautifully 



* ' Essays and Reviews,' p. 208. See also Hitchcock's ' Religion of Geology,' 
p. 25 and 43. 



220 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



expressed in Job xxvi. 7. " He streteheth out the north over the 
empty place ; he hangeth the earth upon nothing." To infer 
that Scripture teaches the immobility of the earth because it 
speaks of sunrise and sunset, or because Joshua said, " Sun, stand 
thou still," is just as fair as to attribute the same error to the 
compilers of almanacks and astronomical tables, or to scientific 
men in their common parlance. There are certain popular 
phrases which no universality of science will ever banish from 
general use. The great historian of the Inductive Sciences, 
like all other people of common sense, uses the popular lan- 
guage. " The motions of the sun, the succession of the places of 
his rising and setting at different times of the year, the greatest 
height which he reaches .... would all exhibit several 
cycles. . . . The turning bach of the sun, when he had 
reached his greatest distance to the south or the north, as shown 
either by his rising or his height at noon, would perhaps be the 
most observable of such circumstances." * If Copernicus himself 
had been in a similar position with that of Joshua, he would 
have used just the same language. To the end of time the most 
scientific of men will continue to speak of sunrise and sunset — 
the sun passing the meridian, or sinking below the horizon ; and 
he who would try to substitute a more exact phraseology would 
be regarded as more of a pedant than a philosopher. 

15. Verses 6-8. — The Mosaic firmament not a solid vault. — 
In close connection with this objection is that directed against 
the Mosaic account of " the firmament." It was already urged 
by Voltaire, and in recent times oft triumphantly repeated, to 
show the supposed ignorance and gross conceptions of the 
Hebrew people. Gesenius, Winer, Knobel, &c, have patronised 
it ; their statements have been transferred wholesale into popular 
English works, and lately repeated in ( Essays and Eeviews 1 
(pp. 219, 220) : — " The work of the second day of creation is to 
erect the vault of heaven (Heb., rakia ; Gr. arepecofia ; 
Lai, firmamentum), which is represented as supporting an 
ocean of water above it. The waters are said to be divided, so 
that some are below, some above the vault. That the Hebrews 
understood the sky, firmament, or heaven, to be a permanent, 
solid vault, as it appears to the ordinary observer, is evident 



* Vol. i. p. 127. 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CREATION. 



221 



enough from various expressions made use of concerning it. It 
is said to have pillars (Job xxvi. 11), foundations (2 Sam. xxii. 
8), doors (Ps. lxxviii. 23), and windows (Gen. vii. 11). No 
quibbling about the derivation of the word rakia, which is 
literally ' something beaten out,' can affect the explicit descrip- 
tion of the Mosaic writer, contained in the words, * The waters 
that are above the firmament,' or avail to show that he was 
aware that the sky is but transparent. 

" Note. — The root is generally applied to express the ham- 
mering or beating out of metal plates ; hence something beaten 
or spread out. It has been pretended that the word rakia may 
be translated expanse, so as merely to mean empty space. The 
context sufficiently rebuts this." 

This objection, ' a if well founded, would be conclusive proof of 
the opposition between astronomic science and the Mosaic cos- 
mogony. But, happily, it is the weakest of all the objections, and 
the most easily refuted by Scripture statement, and by the 
history of interpretation. H The Hebrews," says Mr. Goodwin, 
" understood the sky, firmament, or heaven to be a permanent solid 
vault." Here are two assertions : First, that the Hebrews under- 
stood the firmament or heaven to be a vault. Secondly, that 
they regarded that vault as solid. The first assertion, a repeti- 
tion of Gesenius's hemisphcerii instar, is totally without founda- 
tion. The word rakia signifies not vault, but, as all allow, an 
expanse, something spread out, whether solid or unsolid, and there- 
fore incompatible with, the idea of vault or arch. But the 
main part of the objection is that the firmament, or heavens, are 
solid or firm. Now, according to Scripture, the firmament, or 
heaven, is that space or place where birds fly. They could not 
fly in a solid vault ; therefore the firmament cannot be a solid 
vault. This is proved by the following references. In Gen. i. 
28, birds are called " the fowl of the heavens " (not " air," as 
the Authorized Version has it) — a description utterly inapplica- 
ble if the heavens be a permanent solid vault, in which the 
heavenly bodies were fixed. "The fowl of the solid vault" 
would be nonsense. If the heavens be the expanse, beginning 
at the earth, extending to the stars, and including the air, the 
description is appropriate ; and so convinced were our trans- 
lators that the heavens have this meaning, that they have here 
and elsewhere translated " fowl of the air," not " fowl of the 



222 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay Y, 



heavens." The reason why Moses calls birds fowls of the heavens 
is because they fly in the heavens, as we read, Deut. iv. 17, 
" any winged fowl that flieth in the heavens." And again, Pro v. 
xxx. 19, " The way of an eagle in the heavens." And again, 
Jer. viii, 7, " The stork in the heavens knoweth his appointed 
time." In all these passages, " heavens " means the place where 
birds fly.* In Psalm lxxviii. 36, the word means the place 
where winds blow — " He causeth a wind to blow in the heavens ;" 
in both cases the region of the atmosphere. The Biblical 
writers must, therefore, have considered the heavens or firma- 
ment as something analogous to the air, an expanse, or ether, 
not a hard, solid vault. 

The idea of expanse, independent, or even exclusive of 
solidity, is also to be inferred, from the manner in which other 
verbs t simply signifying to extend or spread out, are applied to 
the heavens : as, for instance, Isaiah xlviii. 13, " My right hand 
hath spread out (tippechah) the heavens." Isaiah xl. 22, " That 
stretcheth out (noteh) the heavens like a curtain (literally, like 
fineness), and spreadeth them out (vaigimtach) as a tent to dwell 
in." The comparison to a tent does not suggest solidity — the 
comparison with a fine curtain excludes it. The Hebrew word 
(Dok) here used for curtain, is cognate with Dale, " fine dust," 
and signifies, as Gesenius says, " Fineness — hence fine cloth, 
garment, a curtain." The same idea of something unsolid, un- 
permanent, and movable, is conveyed in the similar figure, 
Ps. civ. 2, "Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain 
[Yerihah]." The Hebrew word here used for curtain means 
" something tremulous," and, as Gesenius gives it, " a curtain, 
hanging, so called from its tremulous motion " — a simile most 
unsuitable for a solid vault, most appropriate for an ethereal 
expanse or fluid. 

But besides Rahia and Shamaim, there is another word, 
Shechahim, said to be used sometimes for heavens, which also 
excludes the idea of solidity. Gesenius thus gives the meaning : 
" PD^« !• Dust, fine dust. Isai. xl. 15 ; 2. A cloud, Arab, thin 



* These passages also give the true 
meaning of the words in Genesis i. 30, 
where the Authorized Version has, " In 
the open firmament of heaven," lite- 



rally, " upon the face of the firmament 
of heaven." 

t The verbs HLDJ Natah, nDEMathach, 
and natO Taphach. 



Essay Y.] 



THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATIOX. 



223 



cloud, pp., as it would seem, cloud of dust, or the like. Mostly 
in plural, clouds. Metonvm. for the firmament, the heavens, the 
sky, i. q. D'2# and #$TJ, comp. in English clouds. Job 
xxxvii. 18, 'Hast thou like him spread out the shy (urj?ff$), 
o^&ft 25 firm like a molten looking-glass f " A cloud of dust is 
nothing solid, and, therefore, when the word Shachak, signifying 
cloud of dust, is transferred to the clouds of heaven, it implies 
that, in the mind of him that transferred it, the clouds of 
heaven are also devoid of solidity. But here it will be replied, 
In the passage of Job, just referred to by Gesenius, " the sky " 
is compared to a molten metallic mirror — it must, therefore, be 
firm, like a metal plate. Now, granting for a moment that 
? sky " is here a possible translation, the conclusion drawn does 
not follow. If the sky be solid and firm, and able to bear up a 
whole heavenly ocean of water, is it not rather a descent from 
the poetic, indeed a very considerable bathos, to compare its 
strength to that of a woman's metal mirror ? The beauty of the 
simile is lost. Luther's poetic mind and shrewd common sense saw 
this, and, therefore, when there was no dispute about the matter, 
showed that here there is a contrast rather than a comparison. 
The expanse, he says, is rarer and finer than the atmosphere in 
which we live, and yet, through the power of the Divine word, 
strong as if it were metal.* 

Take into account the exact meaning of Shechakim, clouds, or 
substances unsolid ad a cloud of dust, and the beauty and force of 
the figure come out still more strongly. When, therefore, it is 
remembered that " the Hebrews " regarded the heavens or fir- 
mament as including the place where birds fly — that they liken 
it to fineness or fine cloth, that they regard it as tremulous, like 
a tremulous curtain, and thought that it was of the nature of tho 
clouds, Cpn^, and that the clouds were of the nature of a 
cloud of fine dust, and might be called by the same word, it will 
be seen that they did not consider the heavens as a solid vault, 
but as an ether similar to the atmosphere. 

That the word JRakia signifies expanse is also proved by 
Jewish tradition. It is that sense which appears when the J ews 
began to write lexicons and grammars, and is preserved to this 



* See the passage quoted below, p. 224. 



224 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



day. David Kinichi, in his Book of Roots, explains the word 
Rakah first by Paras, to spread out, and he is followed by both 
Spanish and German Jews, who translate Rahia expanse. 

The Jewish- Spanish version has " Espandidura ;" the Jewish- 
German " Ansspreitnng ;" the Pentateuch by Zunz, Arnheim, 
and Sachs gives " Ausdehnung." The ' Jewish School and 
Family Bible/ by Dr. Benisch, has " expanse." At the revival 
of letters Christians learned Hebrew from the Jews, and received 
the old Jewish interpretation "expanse." So Yatablus and, 
Peter Martyr have " Sit expansio in medio aquarum." Calvin 
has both extensio and expansio — " Sit extensio in medio aquarum 

et fecit Deus expansionem ;" and so Sebastian Munster, 

Mercerus, the Geneva French Bible of 1588, Luke Osiander, 
1597, and Cypriano de Valera, 1602, who has "Sea un estendi- 
miento en medio de las aguas." And Luther, thoughhe retained 
the word " Yeste," answering to "firmament," explains it as a 
fine and subtile expanse. In his Commentary to verse 6, he 
says, " God takes this thick and shapeless lump of vapour, nebel 
(nebula), created the first day out of nothing, and commands 

it to spread itself out for the word Rakia signifies among 

the Hebrews something extended and spread out, and comes 
from Raka, to spread out .... when, therefore, Job says, xxxvii. 
18, ' The heavens are made firm as with iron,' he has respect not 
to the material, but to the Word, which can make the softest 
thing in nature into the strongest and the firmest, .... for we 

know how subtile the air is in which we live But the 

heaven is naturally still more subtile and thin." * Yatablus 
gives a similar explanation. Having remarked that heaven is 
by the Hebrews sometimes called Shamaim, sometimes Rakia, 
he says, "It is distinguished into two parts, the upper part, 
which is called ether, which is fire, and the lower part, which is 
called air." Calvin (in he.) gives a similar interpretation. 
" Moreover, the word Rakia comprehends not only the whole 
region of the air, but whatever is open above us, as the word 
heaven is sometimes understood by the Latins." Xow, it is to 
be remarked that these interpretations were given when the old 
system of astronomy was still in fashion, and received by those 



* Luther's ' Werbe.' Walch. vol, i. 



Essay Y.] 



THE MOSAIC EECORD OF CREATION. 



225 



who give these interpretations, as the Jewish Rabbis and the 
Reformers. They cannot therefore be accused of quibbling, or 
of advocating a new interpretation to help them out of difficul- 
ties arising from the discoveries of Copernicus and Galilee . 
This sense continued to be received by Hebrew scholars until 
the infection of Deistic infidelity fully influenced the minds of 
men to make out a case of ignorance against Moses and the 
Hebrews. It is found in Mariana, 1624 ; Hottinger, 1659 ; 
Seb. Schmidt, 1697; Baumgarten and Rom. Teller, 1749'; 
J. a F. Schultz, 1783 ; Dathius, 1791 ; Ilgen, 1798. Even in 
the first edition of Gesenius's 'Lexicon,' 1810-13, though he 
says that the Hebrews looked upon heaven as solid, he explains 
rakia, not as a solid expanse, but " Etwas ausgebreitetes." In 
later editions he wavers, sometimes inserting, sometimes omit- 
ting, the word " solid " or " firm.'-' * 

But, it may be asked, if such be the Jewish tradition, how 
the LXX. and Vulgate came to render Rakia by arepecofia, 
firmamentum. The answer is, that by arepecofia the LXX. also 
understood a fine and subtile ether which held the heavenly 
bodies in their places. Stereoma was chosen not to express 
something itself solid, but something that strengthened or made 
firm the heavenly bodies. They took the word in the transitive 
sense, like ftefialcDfia, hr)\w[ia, wWfpcDfia, &c. ; and this is proved 
by the Vulgate having firmamentum, which form of word signi- 
fies something that makes firm, like ornamentum, complementum, 
alimentum, monitmentuvi, &c. In this sense stereoma is else- 
where used by the LXX., as Ezek. iv. 16 : "I will break the 
staff of bread, arepeco/jLa dprov ; " and Esther ix. 29 : " And the 
confirmation of the letter, to re arepeco/jua t^? €7rtcrToX^?." And 
again Ps. xviii. 3 : "The Lord is my rock, arepeco^a /jlov," 
where the Vulgate has firmamentum rneum. That Jerome 



* In the ' German Manual ' of 1823, 
in the verb yp"l we find — " (1) Staru- 
pfen mit clen Fiissen ... (2) Stampfen, 
breitschlagen, claher . . . (3) AuSbreiten, 
aber nur von festen Korpern . . . Im 
Syr. befestigen, griinden." In the Latin 
edition of 1833 it is not found. In 
Eobinson's translation, the word " solid" 
is found in the substantive, but not in 
the verb. The reference to the Syriac 
shows that the idea " firm " is not in- 



cluded : Syr- ^£15 — firmavit, stabilivit, 

Aph. fundavit, pertundendo et consti- 
pando firmavit, ut facere solent, qui 
iundamenta eedium jaciunt." Accord- 
ing to this, and Gesenius is right, the 
Syriac word does not mean to beat out 
or ram something that is solid or firm, 
but by ramming or beating to make 
i firm that which was not firm before. 



Q 



226 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



took firraamentum in the same sense appears from his Com- 
mentary on Isa. xxvi. 1, where for /H, bulwark, Symmaclms 
has a-repecofia; and Jerome remarks : "Pro eo quod nosyertimns 
antemurale, Symmaclms firmamentum interpretatus est." And 
again on Ezek. iv. 16, on the words "staff of bread :" " Yerbuni 
Kebraicnm Matteh prima Aquilae editio haculurn, secunda et 
Symmaclms Theodotioque a-Tepeco/xa, id est firmamentum inter- 
pretati sunt." The Septuagint adopted the word, as Le Clerc 
has shown in his Commentary, from the Oriental or Chaldaic 
philosophy : " Hinc coelos l^Tp"! Rekihin, et iit loquuntur 
Graeci eornm interpretes, crrepeco/xa, qnod inferiora comprimerent 
ac firmarent, deosque presides uniuscujusque coeli 'Az^o%et? et 
%vvoy/ts, sustentatores et coactores appellabant." He refers in 
proof to a passage in Thomas Stanley's ' History of Philosophy,' 
in which, though that writer calls stereoma sl solid orb, yet he 
shows that this stereoma was of the nature of an ethereal fluid : * 
" The first of the corporeal worlds is the empyreal (by Empy- 
raeum the Chalclseans understood not, as the Christian theolo- 
gists, the seat of God and the blessed spirits, which is rather 
analogous to the supreme light of the Chaldaeans, but the out- 
ward sphere of the corporeal world). It is round in figure, 
according to the oracle, 'enclosing heaven in a round figure.' 
It is also a solid orb, or firmament ; for the same oracles call it 
a-repicD/ma. It consists of fire, whence named the Empyreal, or 
as the oracles, the fiery world, which fire, being immediately 
next the incorporeal supramundane light, is the rarest and 
subtiiest of bodies, and, by reason of this subtilty, penetrates 
into the aether, which is the next world below it, and, by medi- 
ation of the aether, through all the material world. 

" Chap. xiv. — The aether is a fire (as its name implies) less 
subtile than the empyraeuni ; for the empyraeum penetrates 
through the aether; yet is the aether itself so subtile that it 
penetrates through the material world. The second aethereal 
world is the sphere of fixed stars. . . . The third aethereal 
world is that of the planetary orb, which contains the sun, 
moon, and planets." 

According, then, to this meaning of stereoma the word gives 



* 'History of Philosophy,' by Thomas Stanley. Ohaldaick Philosophy, chap, 
xiii. 



Essay V.] 



THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CKEATION. 



227 



no countenance to the idea that the firmament is a solid vault, 
capable of sustaining an ocean of water above it. On the con- 
trary, it conveys the idea of a fine, subtle fluid pervading space, 
and agrees, therefore, with the Biblical usage, which makes it 
an expanse extending from the earth to the heavenly bodies, in- 
cluding the airy space in which birds fly. 

Having thus shown, from the usage of the Biblical writers, 
the uniformity of the Jewish tradition and the LXX., that the 
meaning of Rakia is an expanse, not a solid vault, the fiction of 
" an ocean of water above it " falls of itself. That rests upon 
the supposition of a " permanent solid vault," and is altogether 
incompatible with the true meaning of an ethereal exj^anse. 
But independently of this incompatibility, the theory of " an 
ocean" above the firmament is a mere fiction. There is not 
one word about it in the Bible. The sacred f text says that the 
firmament was to separate the waters which were under the fir- 
mament from the waters which were above the firmament. It 
also relates the gathering together of the waters under the fir- 
mament and the formation of the ocean, but it says not one 
word about the gathering together of the waters above the fir- 
mament into an ocean or reservoir ; that is pure invention of 
hose who wish to burden upon " the Hebrews " what they are 
entirely innocent of. Indeed it is admitted by Gesenius and 
others, though not noticed by the Essayist, that the Hebrews 
knew better, and were acquainted with the true origin of rain. 
Gesenius says that the Hebrew poets describe a firmament, 
<: Super quo oceanus ccelestis existat, apertis firmamenti cancellis 
pluviam demittens in terram (Gen. i. 7, vii. 11; Ps. civ. 3 ; 
cxlviii. 4) vulgarem nimirum intuitionem secuti, licet vera 
rerum ratio iis minime incognita sit." (Yide Gen. ii. 6 ; Job 
xxxvi. 27, 28.) He does not ascribe the fiction of an ocean to 
the Hebrews generally, but only to the poets following popular 
notions. It is therefore unfair to charge it upon " a Hebrew 
Descartes," who must have been up to the science of the day. 

But it is said that the Hebrews believed that heaven had 
pillars and foundations, that there were windows and doors in 
heaven, on the opening of which the rain descended. With 
equal reason might these wise interpreters say that the He- 
brews believed that there were bottles in heaven, and that the 
celestial ocean, or part of it, was first bottled off before the 

Q 2 



228 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



earth could be supplied with rain, or that " the waters are bound 
up in a garment " (Pro v. xxx. 4), or that the ocean has bars and 
doors (Job xxxviii. 10, 17), or that the shadow of death and the 
womb have doors (Job iii. 10), for all these are spoken of. If 
these are figurative, so are the windows and doors of heaven. As 
in Job xxxviii. 37, " Who can number the clouds in wisdom ? or 
who can stay the bottles of heaven?" bottles are parallel to and 
explained by " clouds ;" so in Ps. lxxviii. 23, there is a similar 
explanatory parallelism—" Though He had commanded the 
clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven ;" and few 
children in a Sunday or National school would take bottles or 
doors literally. The common people are not so dull as Gese- 
nius and some other intellectual wonders of the day think. Who 
ever met a rustic, accustomed to look at the heavens, who 
thought it was a solid vault, and that the stars were fixed in like 
nails ? The common people are not so silly : they judge by 
what they see. They do not see a solid vault, but they see the 
lark and the eagle soaring aloft in the air, and they think that 
all beyond is just alike. They never dream of a solid obstacle 
in the way. That solid vault savours much more of the fancy 
of the poet adding a trait of grandeur to a description, or of the 
school of the philosopher inventing a theory to account for the 
motions of the heavenly bodies, than of the practical common 
sense of the common people. The most uneducated know very 
well the connexion between clouds and rain, and in this the 
Hebrews were not behind other peojDle. The two passages 
pointed out by Gesenius — Gen. ii. 6, and Job xxxvi. 27, 28 — 
prove that the Hebrews knew the connexion between evapora- 
tion and rain, especially the latter. "For he maketh small 
the drops of water ; they pour down rain according to the 
vapour thereof, which the clouds do drop and distil upon man 
abundantly." The Hebrew language has various words for 
"cloud" or " clouds ;" they are all found in connexion with 
rain. Thus, Gen. ix. : " When I bring a cloud, PJf, over the 
earth, my bow shall be seen in the cloud." The clouds might 
excite apprehension of another deluge ; the bow dispels it 
Deborah was able to tell how, when the Lord went out of Seir, 
" the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped (distilled) ; the 
clouds, Pp#, also dropped water." (Judges v. 4.) In 1 Kings 
xviii. 44, 45, the little cloud, rising from the sea, was re- 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC RE COED OF CREATION. 



229 



cognized by Elijah as a sign of coming rain; and when the 
heavens were black with clouds and wind, " a great rain " fol- 
lowed. Solomon says (Prov. hi. 20), "By his knowledge the 
depths are broken up, and the clouds, Dpnttf, drop down dew," 
which reads very like a commentary upon Gen. vii. 11, "the 
fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of 
heaven were opened." These are only a few specimens of the 
many passages that bear upon the subject ; but sufficient to show 
that " the Hebrews " knew very well that rain did not come 
from a celestial ocean, through windows and doors, nor yet from 
bottles in the heavens, but from the clouds. Indeed, the con- 
nexion between the two furnished materials for the proverb, 
" Clouds, OWEO, and wind, and no rain ; such is the man 
whose promise of a gift is a lie." (Prov. xxv. 14.) 

But though there be no ocean above the firmament, may 
there not have been, may there not still be, waters above the 
firmament ? Such was the opinion of the learned F. Yon 
Meyer, adopted by Kurtz in his first edition of ' Bible and 
Astronomy,' and lately advocated by Delitsch. That such a 
supposition is not unscientific, appears from Dr. Whewell's 
4 Theory of the Solar System :' — " The planets exterior to Mars, 
Jupiter, and Saturn especially, as the best known of them, ap- 
pear, by the best judgment which we can form, to be spheres of 
water and of aqueous vapour, combined, it may be, with atmo- 
spheric air . . . Can we see any physical reason for the fact, 
which appears to us probable, that all the water and vapour of 
the system is gathered in its outward parts ? It would seem 
that we can. Water and aqueous vapour are driven off and re- 
tained at a distance by any other source of heat. ... It was, 
then, agreeable to the general scheme, that the excess of water 
and vapour should be packed into rotating masses, such as are 
Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. . . . And thus the 
vapour, which would otherwise have wandered loose about the 
atmosphere, was neatly wound into balls, which again were kept 
in their due place by being made to revolve in nearly circular 
orbits about the sun." Perhaps, when science knows a little 
more about the ethereal medium which fills space, and in which 
the heavenly bodies move, it may also learn something more 
about " this water and aqueous vapour," and be better able to 
understand the Mosaic statement about the waters above the 



230 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



firmament. But, however that be, Biblical usage, Jewish tra- 
dition, the reason that moved the LXX. to adopt stereoma, and 
the Yulgate firmamentum, the current of Protestant interpreta- 
tion until a recent date, concur in proving that " the Hebrews " 
did not believe in a solid heaven, like the brass or iron heaven 
of the heathens, but in an expanse of something like the atmo- 
spheric air.* This is not contrary, but rather agreeable to the 
discoveries of modern science, which attributes the retardation 
of the heavenly bodies to some resisting medium, and light to 
the undulations of some subtile fluid. 

16. Yeese 27. Creation of one human pair. — This subject has 
been so fully discussed by Prichard that it is not necessary to 
enter upon it here.t It may be well, however, to notice a 
statement in ' Essays and Reviews ' which says that the original 
formation of only one pair of human beings is taught only in 
the second chapter, and not in the first. " Man is said to have 
been created male and female, and the narrative contains 
nothing to show that a single pair only is intended." J " It is in 
the second narrative of creation that the formation of a single 
man out of the dust of the earth is described, and the omission 
to create a female at the same time is stated to have been 
repaired by the subsequent formation of one from the side of the 
man." — Note in * Essays and Reviews,' p. 222. But the text in 
Gen. i., if carefully examined, proves that only one pair of 
human beings is intended, and that the formation of the two 
was not simultaneous. In verse 26 we read, " And God said, 
Let us make man (Adam without article) in our image, after 
our likeness, and let them have dominion," etc. Here the 
language is indefinite. It refers to the whole human race. But 



* The threat, Levit. xxvi. 19, " I will 
make your heaven like the" iron, and 
your earth like the brass," also shows 
that the Hebrews as little looked upon 
the heavens as hard and solid, as they 
believed the earth to be brass. 

f Prichard sums up his argument 
thus : — " On the whole it appears that 
the information deduced from this 
fourth method of inquiry is as satisfac- 
tory as we could expect, and is suffi- 
cient to confirm, and indeed by itself to 
establish, the inference that the human 
kind contains but one species, and there- j 



fore, by a second inference, but one 
race. It will, I apprehend, be allowed 
by those who have attentively followed 
this investigation of particulars, that 
the diversities in physical character be- 
longing to different races present no 
material obstacle to the opinion that 
all nations sprang from one original, a 
result which plainly follows from the 
foregoing consideration." ('Eesearches 
into the Physical History of Mankind,' 
bv James Cowles Prichard, M.D., vol. 
ii. p. 589.) 

X Cf. ' Essays and Keviews.' 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 



231 



then follows, "And God created the man (Adam, with the 
article) in his image, in the image of God created He him : male 
and female created He them." Here the language is definite, 
" the man," and in the first half of the verse the pronoun is in 
the singular number, and the masculine gender, " In the image 
of God created He him." If the author had intended briefly to 
have stated that at first only one human being, and that one the 
male, was created, what other language could he have em- 
ployed ? Then, having spoken in the singular number, and the 
masculine gender, he as briefly but clearly describes the subse- 
quent distinction into sexes. "Male and female created He 
them." The plan of this chapter forbad his entering into the 
detail of the creation of woman, just as much as it hindered him 
from describing the varieties of herbs or trees, or fowls or fishes, 
or of beasts of the earth and cattle. As he merely says that 
God created them, so here, after the mention of " the man," he 
just notices the fact that God created them male and female ; 
but in that very notice he implies that there is something 
peculiar, for with regard to fish or beasts or cattle he does not 
mention that God created them male and female, or, as it may 
be rendered, "a male and a female." With regard to man, 
short as is the notice, he does relate, first, that " in the image 
of God created He him," that is one male ; and then " male and 
female created He them." Even according to the opinion of 
those who make the first and second chapters of Genesis two- 
accounts, written by two authors, the fifth chapter was written 
by the author who wrote the first chapter (the Elohist, as they 
say). But in the fifth chapter the creation of one pair only is 
plainly implied. " This is the book of the generations of Adam- 
In the day that God created Adam, in the likeness of God 
created He him ; male and female created He them ; and blessed 
them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were 
created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years," etc.. 
In all this Adam is one person, and yet the first and second 
verses are a recapitulation of chapter i. 26, 27, in the very words 
of those verses. Therefore in i. 27, the author took Adam as 
one individual male human being, as Knobel fairly admits in 
his commentary on chap. v. 1-5 : — 

" Adam is here a proper name, as iii. 17 The author 

designedly repeats the statements of i. 27, 28, as his purpose is 



232 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



here to narrate how the first Iranian pair propagated*the species 
by generation, and brought forth children of the same form 
which they themselves had received at the creation from God. 
The passage teaches that the Elohist, who here attri- 
butes to his Adam the begetting of a son in his 130th year, 
also believed in one first human pair, though in i. 26 he had not 
plainly said so." 

On this point, therefore, there is no discrepancy between the 
first and second chapters. The first chapter, as is proved by 
v. 26, 27, relates, first, the creation of Adam, and then mentions 
the distinction of male and female. The second chapter gives 
the particulars, first, of the creation of Adam, then of the crea- 
tion of Eve. 

17. Thus a comparison of the actual statements of Moses 
with the discoveries and conclusions of modern science is so 
far from shaking, that it confirms our faith in the accuracy 
of the sacred narrative. We are astonished to see how the 
Hebrew Prophet, in his brief and rapid outline sketched 3000 
years ago, has anticipated some of the most wonderful of recent 
discoveries, and can ascribe the accuracy of his statements and 
language to nothing but inspiration. Moses relates how God 
created the heavens and the earth at an indefinitely remote 
period before the earth was the habitation of man — geology 
has lately discovered the existence of a long prehuman period. 
A comparison with other scriptures shows that the " heavens " 
of Moses include the abode of angels, and the place of the 
fixed stars, which existed before the earth. Astronomy points 
out remote worlds, whose light began its journey long before 
the existence of man. Moses declares that the earth was or 
became covered with water, and was desolate and empty. Geo- 
logy has found by investigation that the primitive globe was 
covered with an uniform ocean, and that there was a long azoic 
period, during which neither plant nor animal could live. 
Moses states that there was a time when the earth was not 
dependent upon the sun for light or heat, when, therefore, there 
could be no climatic differences. Geology has lately verified 
this statement by finding tropical plants and animals scattered 
over all parts of the earth. Moses affirms that the sun, as well 
as the moon, is only a light-holder. Astronomy declares that 
the sun itself is a non-luminous body, dependent for its light on 



Essay V.] THE MOSAIC KECOKD OF CREATION. 



233 



a luminous atmosphere. Moses asserts that the earth existed 
before the sun was given as a luminary. Modern science pro- 
poses a theory which explains how this was possible. Moses 
asserts that there is an expanse extending from earth to distant 
heights, in which the heavenly bodies are placed. Eecent dis- 
coveries lead to the supposition of some subtile fluid medium 
in which they move. Moses describes the process of creation 
as gradual, and mentions the order in which living things 
appeared, plants, fishes, fowls, land-animals, man. By the 
study of nature geology has arrived independently at the same 
conclusion. Where did Moses get all this knowledge? How 
was it that he worded his rapid sketch with such scientific 
accuracy? If he in his day possessed the knowledge which 
genius and science have attained only recently, that knowledge 
is superhuman. If he did not possess the knowledge, then 
his pen must have been guided by superhuman wisdom. Faith 
has, therefore, nothing to fear from science. So far the records 
of nature, fairly studied and rightly interpreted, have proved 
the most valuable and satisfying of all commentaries upon the 
statements of Scripture. The ages required for geological deve- 
lopment, the infinity of worlds and the immensity of space 
revealed by astronomy, illustrate, as no other note or comment 
has ever done, the Scripture doctrines of the eternity, the omni- 
potence, the wisdom of the Creator. Let then Science pursue 
her boundless course, and multiply her discoveries in the heavens 
and in the earth. The believer is persuaded that they will 
only show more clearly that " the words of the Lord are pure 
words, as silver tried in a furnace of fire, purified seven times." 
Let Criticism also continue her profoundly interesting and im- 
portant work. Let her explore, sift, analyse, scrutinize, with all 
her powers, the documents, language, and contents of Scripture, 
and honestly tell us the results. Since the day when Laurentius 
Valla exposed the fiction of the Imperial donation, she has 
contributed much to the removal of error, and the advancement 
of literary, patristic, and historic truth ; and Divine revelation 
has also been illustrated by her labours. It might be shown that 
even the hostile and sceptical have involuntarily helped in the 
confirmation of the Christian verity, and that even their labours 
cannot be neglected without loss. But the student must carefully 
distinguish between the speculations of individuals and the ascer- 



234 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay V. 



tained, settled results of criticism. The theory of any one indi- 
vidual, however learned, laborious, and genial, is only an opinion, 
perhaps only one of a chaos of conflicting opinions, where sound 
criticism has found no sure footing. The settled results are those 
which, after severe testing, have been unanimously accepted by 
the competent, the sober, and the judicious. The former may 
be popular for a while, and seem to shake the faith ; but they 
are gradually overthrown by the progress of critical investiga- 
tion, and take their place in the record of things that were. 
The history of the last hundred years, since modern criticism 
took its rise, is sufficient to quiet the believer's mind as to the 
ultimate result. It tells of theory after theory, propounded by 
the critics of the day, first applauded, then controverted, then 
rejected, just like the philosophic systems of the same period, 
and yet a gradual advance from anti-Christian hostility to an 
effort after scientific impartiality, and a large amount of positive 
gain for the right interpretation of Scripture and the confirma- 
tion of the old Christian belief. Faith, therefore, feels no more 
fear of Criticism than of Science, being assured that neither can 
" do anything against the truth, but for the truth." 



ESSAY VI. 

ON THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
OF THE PENTATEUCH. 



CONTENTS OF ESSAY VI. 



1. Historic character of Christianity 

— attacks upon it — grounds of the 
attacks lie in speculation rather 
than in discovery. 

2. The Pentateuch specially assailed 

— object of the paper, to defend 
(a) the genuineness of the Pen- 
tateuch, and (b) its authenticity. 

3. First argument in favour of the 

genuineness, the fact that the 
work has come to us under the 
name of Moses. 

4. Second argument, from the archaic 

character of the narrative and of 
the language. 

5. Third argument, from the intimate 

acquaintance "with Egypt shown 
by the author. 

6. Fourth argument, from the know- 

ledge which he displays of the 
Sinaitic peniusula and of the old 
races inhabiting Canaan. 

7. Fifth argument, from the fact that 

the Pentateuch professes to be the 
work of Moses — the fact admitted 
by nationalists. 

8. Sixth argument, from the uniform 

and consistent witness of the ear- 
liest Jewish writers. 

9. Seventh argument, from the testi- 

mony of the Heathen. 

10. Objection of De Wette, from the 

literary perfection of the work, 
answered— Perfection not so great 
as supposed — Actual literary me- 
rit not very surprising. 

11. Objection from particular passages, 

said to imply a later date— First 
answer. 

12. Second answer. 

13. Objection from the supposed intro- 

duction of the Levitical system at 
a time long subsequent to Moses 
— Grounds of the objection dis- 
proved. 



14. Mosaic authorship not having been 

disproved, no need to examine the 
other theories of the authorship — 
number of such theories veiy 
great. 

15. Importance of proving the genuine- 

ness. 

16. Explanation of the exact sense in 

which it is maintained that Moses 
was the author of the Pentateuch. 

17. Authenticity of the Pentateuch as- 

sailed on six principal points. — 
I. The Chronology, which is re- 
garded as too narrow — (a) on ac- 
count of the supposed early foun- 
dation of a monarchy in Egypt — 
(6) on account of the time requi- 
site for the formation of language. 
Examination of these two argu- 
ments.— II. The Flood thought to 
have been partial, from the ab- 
sence of a universal tradition of it 
— The tradition proved to be, in 
one sense, universal. — HI. The 
Ethnology of Gen. x. regarded as 
incorrect— Proofs of its correctness 
on the points to which exception 
has been taken. — IV. The early 
chapters of Genesis regarded as 
mythic — (a) on account of the re- 
semblance of the two genealogies 
of the Cainites and the Sethites — 
(b) on account of the significance 
of the names employed — (c) on 
account of the fact that the early 
history of other nations uniformly 
runs up into myth — Examination 
of these arguments. — V. The lon- 
gevity of the Patriarchs considered 
to be impossible— Possibility not 
denied by physiology — Fact of lon- 
gevity strongly attested by history. 
— VI. The time assigned to the 
sojourn in Egypt supposed to be 
incorrect— (aj as being insufficient 
for the immense increase in the 
numbers of the Israelites — (6) as 
being exactly double of the pre- 
ceding period — Examination of 
these arguments. 
I 18. Summary. 



ON THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
OF THE PENTATEUCH. 



- AoKei ovv Tr\fiov rj to rjfxio-v tov ttcivtos ehai 77 apx^-' — AeisTOTLE. 

1. Christianity is an historic religion. It claims to be a rea- 
sonable belief; but it does not base itself upon Keason. Its foun- 
dation is laid on the rock of Fact. God's actual dealings with 
the world from its creation to the full establishment of the 
Christian Church constitute its subject matter, and form the 
ground out of which its doctrines spring. The mystic spirit, 
which, despising the grossness and materiality of facts, seeks 
to form to itself a sublimated and idealized religion in which 
events and occurrences shall have no place, leaves the fixed and 
stable land to float off upon an interminable ocean of shifting 
and changing fancies, substituting in reality for the truth of 
God the mere thoughts, feelings, and opinions of the individual. 
If we are to maintain a Faith worthy of the name, we must 
plant our feet firmly on the solid ground of historic fact, and 
not allow ourselves to be shaken from that ground by unproved 
assertions, however boldly made, or however often repeated. 
We must give little heed to doubts, which may readily be started 
in connexion with any narrative, and demand of those who 
attack our belief, not mere ingenious speculations as to the past, 
but proof that the authoritative account, which has come down 
to us as part and parcel of our religion, and which even they 
profess after a certain sort to venerate, is devoid of literal truth, 
before we follow them in their endeavours to extract from the 
record some other sort of truth — not " rigidly historic " * — but 
ideal, poetic, symbolical. We need not, we must not, shut our 
eyes to any new discoveries, be they scientific or historical ; but 
we are bound to examine the so-called discoveries narrowly, to 
see exactly to what they amount, and then to ask ourselves, 



* Bunsen, e Egypt's Place in Universal History,' vol. iv. p. 383. 



238 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



" Do they positively conflict with the plain historic sense of 
Scripture or no ?" If they do, it will become a question (when 
the presumed discovery is historical) of relative credibility. 
The witnesses contradict one another — which of them shall 
we believe? But more often it will be found that there is 
no such contradiction — that all which the discoveries have 
established, is compatible with the Scriptural narrative, and 
that the contradiction arises only where the conjectures and 
hypotheses of speculative minds have been superadded to the 
facts with which they profess to deal. Where this is the case, 
there need be no hesitation. " Yea, let God be true, and every 
man a liar ! " Human speculations and conjectures, once seen 
to be such, cannot trouble the faith of a Christian man. Facts 
are stubborn things, and rightly command our respect ; hypo- 
theses are airy nothings, and may safely be disregarded and 
despised. 

2. Among the numerous attempts made to disturb men's faith 
in the present day, few have seemed more plausible, or have 
met with a greater amount of success, than those which have 
grouped themselves about the Pentateuch, the foundation stone 
on which the rest of the Bible is built. The genuineness of 
the work, though it has not lacked defenders,* has been pei 
tinaciously denied, both in Germany and in America ; while 
the authenticity of the narrative has been assailed in various 
respects. It will be the aim and object of the present paper 
to show, first that there is no sufficient reason to doubt the 
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and, secondly, that there 
are no sufficient historical grounds for questioning the authen- 
ticity of the narrative. 

3. It is a general rule of literary criticism that, except for 
special reasons, books are to be assigned to the authors whose 
names they bear. In profane literature this rule is considered 
sufficient to determine the authorship of ninety-nine out of 
every hundred volumes in our libraries. Most men, who 
write works of any importance, claim them during their life- 
time ; their claim, if undisputed, is accepted by the world at 
large ; and nothing is more difficult than to change the belief, 



* See especially the work of Jahn, 
' Aechtlieit des Pentateuch s,' and H'a- 
vernick's more recent ' Einleitung,' 



which has been translated for Clarke's 
* Theological Library.' 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



239 



which is thus engendered, subsequently. Every work therefore 
which conies down to us as the production of a particular 
author is to be accepted as his production, unless strong grounds 
can be produced to the contrary. The onus probandi lies with 
the person who denies the genuineness ; and, unless the argu- 
ments adduced in proof are very weighty, the fact of reputed 
authorship ought to overpower them. Sound criticism has 
generally acquiesced in this canon. It raises an important pre- 
sumption in favour of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, 
anterior to any proof of the fact to be derived from internal 
evidence, or from the testimony of those who had special oppor- 
tunities of knowing. 

4. The internal evidence in favour of the Mosaic authorship 
is, briefly, the following : — The book is exactly such a one as a 
writer of the age, character, and circumstances of Moses might 
be expected to produce. Its style is archaic. The reader, even 
of the English version, feels that he is here brought into contact 
with a greater simplicity, a more primitive cast of thought and 
speech, than he meets with in any of the other sacred writings. 
The life described, the ideas, the characters, have about them 
the genuine air of primitive antiquity. The student of the 
original observes that the very words themselves, the construc- 
tions, the grammatical forms, bear similar traces of a remote 
authorship, being often such aS had become obsolete even before 
the composition of the Book of Joshua.* It is impossible to 
exhibit this argument popularly in the present condition of 
Hebrew scholarship among us. Its weight, however, is suffi- 
ciently shown by the pressure which it has exerted upon the 
controversy in Germany, where the opponents of the Mosaic 
authorship are constrained to allow that a considerable number 
of " archaisms " do in fact exist in the Pentateuch, and to account 
for them by the supposition that genuine Mosaic documents 
were in the hands of its "compiler," from which he adopted 
the forms and words in question \\ This is surely about as 
probable as that a modern French author, who made use of 
Froissart among his materials, should adopt his spelling, and 
form his sentences after his type. 



* See Jahn in Ben gel's 1 Archiv,' 
vol. ii., pp. 578 et seqq. ; and Fritzsche, 
'Aechtheit der Biicher Mosis,' pp. 174 
et seqq. Compare also Marsh's 'Authen- 



ticity of the Five Books of Moses,' pp. 
6 et seqq. 

t De Wette, ' Emleitung in d. alt. 
Test.,' § 163. 



240 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



5. Again, the writer shows a close acquaintance with Egypt, 
its general aspect, its history, geography, mariners, customs, pro- 
ductions, and language, which would be natural to one so cir- 
cumstanced as Moses, but which cannot be shown to belong 
naturally, or even probably, to any later Israelite, down to the 
time of Jeremiah. No doubt there was extensive commercial 
and political intercourse between Egypt and Judsea in the age 
of Solomon, and in the later period of the Jewish kingdom ; but 
such intercourse, even if direct (of which we have no proof), 
would fail to give that exact historic knowledge of what would 
then have become a remote era, which the writer of the Pen- 
tateuch displays at every turn in the most easy and natural 
manner possible. Laborious attempts have been made to 
invalidate this argument ; and one writer* lias gone so far as to 
assert that in many respects the author of the Pentateuch 
shows a want of acquaintance with the customs of Egypt, such 
as is sufficient to prove that he was not Moses. But this 
audacity has had the happy effect of calling forth a reply, which 
has established beyond all possibility of refutation the exacti- 
tude and vast extent of the author's Egyptian knowledge, which 
is now allowed on all hands. The work of Hengstenberg, 
"Aegypten und Mose," must be carefully read for the full 
weight of this reasoning to be appreciated.! Its argument 
does not admit of compression, since it depends mainly on the 
multiplicity and minuteness of its detail ; but the impression 
which it leaves may be stated, briefly, as follows : — That either 
a person born and bred in Egypt about the time of the Exodus 
wrote the Pentateuch, or that a writer of a later age elaborately 
studied the history and antiquities of the Egyptians for the 
purpose of imposing a forgery on his countrymen, and that he 
did this with such skill and success that not even modern 
criticism, with its lynx-eyed perspicacity, and immense know- 
ledge of the past, can detect and expose the fraud or point 
out a single place in which the forger stumbled through 
ignorance. 



* Von Bohlen. 

t This work lias been translated 
into English by Mr. K. D. C. Bobbins, 
of the Theological Seminary, Andover, 
United States ; and a reprint of this 



translation, with additional notes, form- 
ed the third volume of Clarke's ' Bibli- 
cal Cabinet,' New Series (Edinburgh- 
1845). 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



241 



6. To this it must be added, that the writer, who is thus 
intimately acquainted with the land and people of Egypt, is 
also fully aware of all the peculiar features of the Sinaitic 
peninsula ; * and further (and more especially) that he has a 
knowledge of the ancient condition and primitive races of 
Canaan, which must have been quite beyond the reach of 
any one who lived much later than Moses. The Eephaim, 
Zuzini, Emim, Horim, Avim, and Anakini, who appear as 
powerful races in the Pentateuch, have either perished or 
been reduced to insignificance by the time of the Judges. 
The writer of the Pentateuch, however, knows their several 
countries, their designations in the mouths of different nations, 
their cities, and the peoples by whom they were severally 
conquered.! Similarly, he acquaints us with the ancient 
names of a number of Canaanitish towns, which had been 
superseded by fresh titles long before the Exodus.J All this 
is natural enough, supposing that the work was composed by 
Moses ; but it would be very forced and artificial in a writer 
of a later age, even if we could suppose such a writer to have 
any means of acquiring the information. 

7. Further, the Pentateuch professes to be the work of Moses. 
Few books comparatively tell us by whom they are written. 
Neither J oshua, nor Judges, nor Kuth, nor the Books of Samuel, 
nor Kings, nor Chronicles, nor Esther, nor the first three Gospels, 
nor the Acts, nor the 'Commentaries' of Csesar, nor the 
'Annals,' or 'Histories,' of Tacitus, nor the 'Hellenics' of Xeno- 
phon, nor Plato's 'Dialogues,' nor Aristotle's 'Philosophical 
Works,' nor Plutarch's 'Lives,' nor at least nine-tenths of the 
other remains of ancient literature, contain within them any 
statements showing by whom they were written. Authorship 
generally is mere matter of notoriety; and usually the best 
evidence we have for it, beyond common repute, is the declara- 
tion of some writer, later by two or three centuries, that the 
person to whom a given work is assigned, composed a book 



* Stanley, ' Sinai and Palestine,' pp. 
20-24. 

t Gen. xiv. 5, 6 ; Num. xiii. 28 ; 
Deut. ii. 10-23. 

% As Mamre, which became first ! 
Kirjath-arba (Josh. xiv. 15), and then 
Hebron ; Bela, which became Zoar I 



(Gen. xiv. 2) ; Enmishpat, which be- 
came Kadesh (ib. ver. 7) ; Hazezon- 
Tamar, which became Engedi (ib. ; 
compare 2 Chron. xx. 2); and Galeed, 
which became Mizpah (Gen. xxxi. 48, 
49). 



R 



242 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



answering* in its subject and its general character to the work 
which we find passing under his name. But occasionally we 
have evidence of a higher order. Some writers formally name 
themselves as the authors of their works at the beginning, or 
at the close, or in the course of their narrative.* Others, 
without a distinct formal announcement, let us see, by the mode 
or matter of their narration, who the author is, using the 
first person, or mentioning facts of which they only could be 
cognisant, or otherwise implying, without directly asserting, 
their authorship. This last is the case of the Pentateuch. The 
author does not formally announce himself, but by the manner 
in which he writes, implies that he is Moses. This is so clear 
and palpable, that even the antagonists of the genuineness are 
forced to allow it.f " The author of the last four books," says 
one, " wishes to be taken for Moses." " The writer of Deutero- 
nomy," says another, " would have men think that his whole 
book is composed by Moses." They do not indeed admit the 
conclusion, that what is thus claimed and professed must be 
true ; but, on the contrary, maintain that the actual writer lived 
many centuries after the great Legislator. Apparently they do 
not see that, if their views are correct, the who]e value of the 
work is lost — that it becomes a mere impudent fraud, utterly 
unworthy of credit, which cannot reasonably be attached to any 
statements made by one who would seek to palm on the world 
a gross and elaborate deception. If a work has merely gone 
accidentally by a wrong name, the discovery of its spuriousness 
need not seriously affect its authenticity ; but if the writer has 
set himself to personate another man in order to obtain for his 
statements a weight and authority to which they would not 
otherwise be entitled, the detection of the fraud carries with 
it the invalidation of the document, by wholly destroying our 
confidence in the integrity of the author. Modern Eationalism 
shrinks from these conclusions. It would degrade the Sacred 
Books, but it would not deprive them altogether of an historic 
character. It still speaks of them as sacred, and as entitled 
to our respect and reverence, while it saps the foundations on 



* As Herodotus, Thucydides, Isaiah, I schungen uber d. Pentateuch,' p. 538 ; 

St. Paul, Jesus the son of Sixach, &c. j Von Bohlen, ' Die Genesis hist. krit. 

t De Wette, ' Einleitung in d. alt. erliiut. Einleitung.' p. xxxviii. 
Test.,' § 162, d. ; Hartmann, ' For- j 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



243 



which their claim to our reverence rests, making them at 
best the "pious frauds" of well-intentioned but unveracious 
religionists. 

8. The external evidence of the Mosaic authorship of the Penta- 
teuch is allowed to be extensive ; but it is said to be of little 
worth, in the first place, because the witnesses are uncritical.* 
The Jews and Greeks, who, during eighteen centuries, without 
a dissentient voice ascribed the "Book of the Law" to Moses, 
were not acquainted with the modern Critical Analysis, which 
claims to be an infallible judge of the age, and mode of com- 
position, of every literary production. It is true the witnesses 
include Apostles,t prophets, J confessors, § our Blessed Lord 
Himself; || but the distance of these witnesses from the age of 
Moses is held to invalidate their testimony ; IT or if the words of 
One at least are too sacred to be gainsaid, He spoke (it is 
argued) by way of accommodation, in order not to shock the 
prejudices of the Jews. We are challenged to produce witnesses 
near the time, and told that no evidence to the Mosaic author- 
ship " approaches within seven centuries to the probable age 
of Moses."** Of course, if the antiquity of the Pentateuch be 
denied, that of the later books of the Old Testament is not 
likely to pass unquestioned. But the challenge is really met, 
and answered fully and fairly by an appeal to those books, 
which are the only writings within the period named in which 
any reference to Moses was to be expected. The author of 
Joshua, by many thought to be J oshua himself, and, if not he, 
at least one of his contemporaries, tt speaks of " the Book of the 
Law," H — " the Book of the Law of Moses," §§ — a book con- 
taining "all that Moses commanded," || || with "blessings and 
cursings;" 11 TT thus entirely corresponding, so far as the descrip- 
tion goes, to the work which has always passed under Moses' 
name. The writer of Judges is less express ; *** but he so com- 



* De Wette, § 164. . 
t John i. 45; 2 Cor. iii. 15. 
% Dan. ix. 11 ; Mai. iv. 4. 
§ Acts vii. 38. 

1| Matt. xix. 7, 8 ; Mark x. 3 ; xii. 26 ; 
Luke xvi. 29 ; xxiv. 27 ; John v. 46, 
&c. 

' Westminster Beview,' No. xxxv., 
p. 35. 

** Ibid. 1. s. c. 

f f For proof of this, see the ' Barnpton 



Lectures ' for 1859, p. 83, first edition. 
%X Josh. i. 8 ; yiii. 34. 
§§ lb. viii. 31 ; xxiii. 6. 
1111 lb. viii. 35. 

Tf^f lb. ver. 34 ; compare Deut. xxvii. 
and xxviii. Note also the quotations in 
Josh. viii. 31, from Deut. xxvii. 5, 6 ; 
and in Josh, xxiii. 7, from Ex. xxiii. 13. 

*** Judg. ii. 15 is probably a reference 
to Lev. xxvi. 16, 17 ; and Judg. iii. 4, 
to the law generally. 

B 2 



244 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



pletely agrees in his account of the Hebrew institutions with 
the Pentateuch, and so closely follows its diction in many 
places, that a candid Rationalist * has been driven to allow, 
that "the arranger of this book was well acquainted with 
the Pentateuch in its entire extent." In Samuel, though the 
Pentateuch itself is not mentioned, there are at least two clear 
citations of it — the passage respecting " the priest's custom with 
the people," t which follows word for word Deut. xviii. 3, and 
that concerning the " assembling of women at the door of the 
Tabernacle of the congregation," J which is an exact repetition 
of Ex. xxxviii. 8. In Kings and Chronicles — both probably 
compilations made from papers contemporary with the kings 
whose history is related — the references to the work are 
frequent ; § and it is unhesitatingly assigned to Moses, || as 
indeed is admitted on all hands. 

It thus appears that the Pentateuch is either cited, or men- 
tioned as the work of Moses, by almost the whole series of 
Jewish historical writers from Moses himself to Ezra. The first 
testimony occurs within (probably) half a century of Moses's de- 
cease, and is by a writer who may have known him personally. 
It is rarely indeed that we have evidence of this satisfactory and 
conclusive character with respect to the genuineness of any an- 
cient work. 

9. With regard to profane testimony, it must be allowed that 
none of it is very ancient. But this simply results from the fact 
that none of the earlier authors have occasion to mention the 
Jews, or to touch the subject of their literature. The first who 
do so — Manetho and Hecataeus of Abdera, an Egyptian and a 
Greek — are in accordance with the native authorities, ascribing 
the law of the Jews, which is represented as existing in a written 
form, to Moses. And the later classical writers, with but one 
exception, are of the same opinion. 

10. To this direct testimony the adversaries of the Mosaic 
authorship are wont to oppose certain difficulties, which militate 
(they argue) against the notion that the work is even of the age 
of Moses. The most important of these is the objection of De 



* Hartmann. 
f 1 Sam. ii. 13. 
J lb. ii. 22. 

§ 1 Kings ii. 3 ; 2 Kings xxii. 8 ; 



xxiii. 3 ; 2 Cbron. xxiii. 18; xxv. 4; 
xxxv. 12. 

|| 1 Kings ii. 3 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 25 ; 
2 Chron. xxiii. 18, &e. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



245 



Wette, that the book is altogether beyond the literary capabi- 
lities of the age, containing within it every element of Hebrew 
literature in the highest perfection to w 7 hich it ever attained, 
and thus (he thinks) necessarily belonging to the acme and not 
to the infancy of the nation.* Were this statement correct, we 
should indeed have a strange phenomenon to account for, 
though one which could not be pronounced impossible, if the 
Divine as well as the human authorship were taken into consi- 
deration. God might have chosen to assign to the first burst of 
written Revelation a literary perfection never afterwards to be 
exceeded or even equalled. He might have given to His first 
mouthpiece, Moses, such powers of mind and such a mastery 
over the Hebrew language as "to leave nothing for succeeding 
authors but to follow in his footsteps. 1 ' The fact, however, is not 
really so. De Wette's statement is a gross exaggeration of the 
reality. Considered as a literary work, the Pentateuch is not 
the production of an advanced or refined, but of a simple and 
rude age. Its characteristics are plainness, inartificiality, absence 
of rhetorical ornament, and occasional defective arrangement. 
The only style which it can be truly said to bring to perfection, 
is that simple one of clear and vivid narrative, which is always 
best attained in the early dawn of a nation's literature, as a 
Herodotus, a Froissart, and a Stow sufficiently indicate. In 
other respects it is quite untrue to say that the work goes be- 
yond all later Hebrew efforts. We look in vain through the 
Pentateuch for the gnomic wisdom of Solomon, the eloquent de- 
nunciations of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, or the lofty flights of 
Isaiah. It is absurd to compare the song of Moses, as a literary 
production, even with some of the Psalms of David, much more 
to parallel it with Ezekiel's eloquence and Homeric variety, or 
Isaiah's awful depth and solemn majesty of repose. In a lite- 
rary point of view it may be questioned whether Moses did so 
much for the Hebrews as Homer for the Greeks, or whether his 
writings had really as great an influence on the after productions 
of his countrymen. And if his literary greatness still surprises 
us, if Hebrew literature still seems in his person to reach too 
suddenly a high excellence, albeit not so high a one as has been 
argued — let us remember, in the first place, that Moses was not, 



* ' Einleitung,' § 163, sub fin. 



246 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



any more than Homer, the first writer of his nation, bnt only 
happens to be the first whose writings have come down to us. 
" Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona." Moses seems so great because 
we do not possess the works of his predecessors, and so are 
unable to trace the progress of Hebrew literature up to him. 
Had we the " songs " of Israel,* and the " book of the wars of the 
Lord," which he quotes, f we might find him no literary pheno- 
menon at all, but as a writer merely on a level with others of 
his age and nation. Again, we must not forget to take into 
consideration the stimulus which contact with the cultivation of 
Egypt would naturally have given to Hebrew literature during 
the two centuries preceding Moses. If we may trust the modern 
decipherers of Egyptian papyri, literature in Egypt had reached 
a tolerably advanced stage in the time of the eighteenth and 
nineteenth dynasties, under one or other of which Moses was in 
all probability born and bred. " The art of writing books was 
invented ages before the time of Moses ;"f and had been carried 
further in Egypt than in any other country. History, epistolary 
correspondence, and novel- writing were known and practised ; so 
that the composition of an extensive work possessing literary 
merits even of a high order would be no strange thing in the 
case of one bred up in the first circles of Egyptian society, and 
" learned in all the wisdom " of that ingenious people. 

11. Besides this general objection, there are a certain number of 
particular passages which, it is said, record facts later than the 
time of Moses, and thus could not have been written by him. 
Such are snpposed to be the mention of Dan instead of Laish in 
Gen. xiv. 14 ; of Hebron instead of Kirjath-Arba or Mamre in 
Genesis § and Numbers ; |] and the list of the kings of Eclom in 
Gen. xxxvi. Now in none of these cases is it really impossible 
that Moses may have written the passages. ' The Dan intended 
may be Dan-jaan,^ and not Laish. Hebron may have been a 
name of the city called also Mamre and Kirjath-Arba, within 
the lifetime of Moses. Even the eight kings of Edom may pos- 
sibly be a dynasty of monarchs intervening between Esau and 



* Num. xxi. 17 ; compare Ex. xv. 1. ! § Gen. xiii. 18 ; xxiii. 2, 19 ; xxxv. 

t Num. xxi. 14. j 27, &c. 

% Bunsen, ' Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 384. || Num. xiii. 22. 
Compare ' Cambridge Essays ' for 1S58, ! 2 Sam. xxiv. 6. 
pp. 230-260. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



247 



Moses, the last of the eight being Moses' contemporary, as con- 
jectured by Havernick.* The remarkable expression, " These 
are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there 
reigned any king over the children of Israel" may be understood 
prophetically. Moses may have intended in the passage to 
mark his full belief in the promises made by God to Abraham 
and Jacob ;f that " kings should come out of their loins," a be- 
lief which he elsewhere expresses very confidently. J There is 
no really valid or insuperable objection to any of these explana- 
tions ; which may not strike us as clever or dexterous, yet which 
may be true nevertheless ; for " Le vrai riest pas toujours le 
vraisemblable." 

12. Or the right explanation may be the more commonly 
received one — that these words, phrases, and passages, together 
with a few others similar to them, are later additions to the text, 
either adopted into it upon an authoritative revision, such as that 
ascribed to Ezra, or, perhaps, accidentally introduced through 
the mistakes of copyists, who brought into the text what had 
been previously added, by way of exegesis, in the margin. 
Such additions constantly occur in the case of classical writers ; 
and there is no reason to suppose that a special providence 
would interfere to prevent their occurrence in the Sacred 
Volume. We "have our treasure in earthen vessels," God 
gives us His Kevelation, but leaves it to us to preserve it by the 
ordinary methods by which books are handed down to posterity. 
No doubt its transcendent value has caused the bestowal of espe- 
cial care and attention on the transmission of the Sacred Volume ; 
and the result is that no ancient collection has come down to us 
nearly so perfect, or with so few corruptions and interpolations ; 
but to declare that there are none, is to make an assertion impro- 
bable a priori, and at variance with the actual phenomena. The 
sober-minded in every age have allowed that the written Word, 
as it has come down to us, has these slight imperfections, which 
no more interfere with its value than the spots upon the sun de- 
tract from his brightness, or than a few marred and stunted 
forms destroy the harmony and beauty of Nature. 

13. One other line of objection requires a few words of notice. 
The whole Levitical system, it is sometimes said, was an after- 



* ' Einleitmig,' § 124. 



t Gen. xvii. 6, 16 ; xxxv. 11. 



% Deut. xvii. 11-20. 



248 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



growth from the real Mosaic law, which went but little, if at all, 
beyond the Decalogue. This is thought to be evidenced by the 
scantiness of any traces of Levitical worship throughout the period 
of the Judges, and the infraction of various precepts of the cere- 
monial law from the time of Joshua to that of Nehemiah. But it 
has been shown* that though the Book of Judges exhibits a very 
disordered political and religious condition of the nation, and 
from its nature — biographical rather than historical — is likely 
to contain but little regarding the Mosaical institutions, yet it 
does, in point of fact, bear witness to the knowledge and prac- 
tical existence during the period whereof it treats, of a very con- 
siderable number of those usages which are specially termed 
Levitical. The sacred character of the Levites, their dispersion 
among the different tribes, the settlement of the High-Priesthood 
in the family of Aaron, the existence of the Ark of the Cove- 
nant, the power of inquiring of God and obtaining answers, the 
irrevocability of a vow, the distinguishing mark of circumcision, 
the distinction between clean and unclean meats, the law of the 
Xazarite, the use of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, the em- 
ployment of trumpets as a means of obtaining Divine aid in war, 
the impiety of setting up a king, are severally acknowledged in 
the Book of Judges, and constitute together very good evidence 
that the Mosaic ceremonial law was already in force, and, though 
disregarded in many points by the'mass, was felt as binding by all 
those who had any real sense of religion. The ritual, as a whole, 
is clearly not of later introduction than the time of the Judges, 
since twelve or thirteen of its main points are noted as being at 
that time in force. Why, then, should we suppose, merely be- 
cause the book is silent on the subject, that the other enact- 
ments which are in the same spirit and are inextricably inter- 
twined with these, were not known at the period ? It is always 
dangerous to build on silence. Here the silence is only partial ; 
and the half-utterance which we have is sufficient to indicate 
what the full answer would have been, had it come within the 
scope of the writer to deliver it. There is thus ample reason to 
conclude that the Levitical law was complete in all its parts 
before the time of the Judges. 

What, then, shall we say to its infractions ? what to David's 
" priests of the tribe of Judah ?" what to Solomon himself offer- 
ing sacrifice? what more especially to the suspension, of the 



* By Havernick. * Einleitimg,' § 136. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



249 



Feast of Tabernacles for eight hundred years from Joshua to 
Nehemiah ? * Are they compatible with the existence of the 
Pentateuch at the time, and with an acknowledgment of its 
Divine authority on the part of those who disobeyed its injunc- 
tions ? Even if we allow them all to be infractions, f we may 
still answer that undoubtedly they are. An authority may be 
acknowledged which is not obeyed. Precepts may be heard, 
read, and known, may be as familiar as household words in the 
mouths of persons, and yet may not be carried out in act. 
There would be nothing more strange in David's breaking the 
Levitical law with respect to priesthood in the case of his sons, 
than in his infraction of the moral law respecting chastity in the 
case of Uriah's wife. There would be no greater marvel in 
Solomon's taking it upon himself to offer sacrifice than in his 
marrying wives from the forbidden nations. There would be 
nothing harder to understand in the discontinuance after a while 
of one of the great Mosaical feasts, than in the introduction and 
stubborn maintenance from one generation to another of idola- 
trous rites. The moral law, admitted to have been given by 
Moses, was broken constantly in almost every clause ; why then 
should infractions of the ceremonial law disprove its having 
come from him ? 

14. The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is therefore a 
thing which, to say the least, has not been hitherto disproved ; and 
the ingenious attempts of the modern reconstructive criticism to 



* ' Westminster Keview,' No. xxxv., 
p. 36. The writer gives no . reference, 
except to Nehemiah viii. 17, which 
shows (he thinks) that "for 800 years 
from the days of Joshua to those of 
Ezra, the Feast of Tabernacles was un- 
known in Israel." Probably he would 
regard "David's priests of the tribe of 
Judah " as mentioned in 2 Sam. viii. 18, 
where the Hebrew has D^na, which 
commonly means "priests;" "while for 
" Solomon's sacrifices " we should be re- 
ferred to 1 Kings viii. 5, 62-64 ; 2 Chr. 
v. 6 ; vii. 4, 5 ; and viii. 12. 

t In point of fact, none of the in- 
fractions need be allowed. David's 
" priests of the tribe of Judah " are 
probably not " priests," but " princes," 
or "chief rulers," as our Authorized 
Version renders. (See Buxtorf ad voc. 
)rp, and compare Gesenius ad eancl., who 
allows that }n3 may mean "a prince;" 



though he prefers in this place to trans- 
late "priests," and to understand "ec- 
clesiastical counsellors." Note also that 
the LXX. give avXapxai, "chamber- 
lains," and that in the parallel passage, 
l.Chron. xviii. 17, the expression used is 
"fen K?. Q^K-)n, "chief" or "first 
about the king.") With regard to So- 
lomon's sacrifices, it is nowhere either 
stated or implied that he sacrificed with 
Ms own hand. " The priests " are men- 
tioned as present with him at the time 
(1 Kings viii. 6; 2 Chron. v. 7 ; vii. 2, 
6), and it is most probable that he used 
their services. Evidently he could not 
liimself have slain the 22,000 oxen and 
120,000 sheep of one sacrifice (1 Kings 
viii. 63). And Nehemiah, in viii. 17, 
probably only means that no such cele- 
bration of the feast had taken place 
since the time of Joshua. 



250 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



resolve the work into its various elements, and to give an 
account of the times when and the persons by whom they were 
severally composed, even if they had no other fault, must be 
pronounced premature ; for until it is shown that the book was 
not composed by its reputed author, the mode and time of its com- 
position are not fit objects of research. The theological student 
may congratulate himself that this is so, and that he is not 
called upon to study and decide between the twenty different 
views — each more complicated than the last — which Continental 
critics, from Astruc to Bunsen, have put out on this apparently 
inexhaustible subject. 

15. It is sometimes said that questions of genuineness are 
matters of mere idle curiosity, and that authenticity is alone of 
importance. In an historical work especially, what we want to 
know is, not by whom it is written, but whether the narrative 
which it contains is true. This last, no doubt, is our ultimate 
object ; but it not unfrequently happens that, for the purpose of 
deciding it, we have to consider the other point ; since the 
genuineness is often the best guarantee of the authenticity. 
How entirely would it change our estimate of Xenophon's ' Ana- 
basis,' were we to find that it was composed under the name of 
Xenophon by a Greek of the time of the Antonines ! No works 
are more valuable for history than autobiographies ; and when 
we come upon a document claiming any such character, it is of 
great importance to see whether upon examination the character 
is sustained or no. Given the genuineness of such a work, and 
the authenticity follows almost as a matter of course, unless it 
can be shown that the writer is unveracious, and wished to de- 
ceive, nationalists have not failed to perceive the force of this 
reasoning with respect to the Pentateuch; and hence their 
laborious efforts to disprove its genuineness. Strauss remarks 
naively enough — " The books which describe the departure of 
the Israelites from Egypt, and their wanderings through the 
wilderness, bear the name of Moses, who, being their leader, 
would undoubtedly give a faithful history of these occurrences, 
unless he designed to deceive ; and who, if his intimate connection 
with Deity described in these books be historically true, was 
likewise eminently qualified, by virtue of such connection, to 
produce a credible history of the earlier periods." * This admis- 



* ' Leben Jesu,' Einleitung, § 13. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



251 



sion on the part of the most extreme of Eationalists is sufficient 
to show that, at least in the case before us, it is not irrelevant 
or unimportant to attempt to establish the genuineness of the 
record. 

16. Before the final close of this portion of the inquiry, it will 
perhaps be best to state distinctly in Avhat sense it is intended 
to maintain that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. In 
the first place, it is not intended to assert that he was the original 
composer of all the documents contained in his volume. The 
Book of Genesis bears marks of being to some extent a compi- 
lation. Moses probably possessed a number of records, some of 
greater, some of less antiquity, whereof, under Divine guidance, 
he made use in writing the history of mankind up to his own 
time. It is possible that the Book of Genesis may have been, 
even mainly, composed in this way from ancient narratives, 
registers, and biographies, in part the property of the Hebrew 
race, in part a possession common to that race with others. 
Moses, guided by God's Spirit, would choose among such docu- 
ments those which were historically true, and which bore on the 
religious history of the human race. He would not be bound 
slavishly to follow, much less to transcribe them, but would 
curtail, expand, adorn, complete them, and so make them 
thoroughly his own, infusing into them the religious tone of his 
own mind, and at the same time re-writing them in his own 
language. Thus it would seem that Genesis was produced. 
With regard to the remainder of his history, he would have no 
occasion to use the labours of others, but would write from his 
own knowledge. 

In the second place, it is not intended to deny that the Pen- 
tateuch may have undergone an authoritative revision by Ezra, 
when the language may have been to some extent modernised, 
and a certain number of parenthetic insertions may have been 
made into the text. The Jewish tradition on this head seems to 
deserve attention from its harmony with what is said of Ezra in 
the book which bears his name.* And this authoritative revision 
would account at once for the language not being more archaic 
than it is, and for the occasional insertion of parentheses of the 
nature of a comment. It would also explain the occurrence of 
" Chaldaisms " in the text.f 



* See Lord Arthur Hervey's article I Dictionary,' vol. i., p. 606. 
on * Ezra/ in Dr. Smith's ' Biblical | f Hirzel, ' De Ohaldaismi Biblici 



252 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



Thirdly, it is, of course, not intended to include in the Pen- 
tateuch the last chapter of Deuteronomy, which was evidently 
added after Moses' death, probably by the writer of the Book of 
J oshua. 

17. The authenticity of the Pentateuch has been recently called 
in question, principally on the following points: — 1. The chro- 
nology, which is regarded as very greatly in deficiency ; 2. The 
account given of the Flood, which is supposed to magnify a 
great calamity in Upper Asia into a general destruction of the 
human race ; 3. The ethnological views, which are said to be 
sometimes mistaken ; 4. The patriarchal genealogies, which are 
charged with being purely mythical ; 5. The length of the lives 
of the Patriarchs, which is thought to be simply impossible ; 
and 6. The duration of the sojourn in Egypt, which is con- 
sidered incompatible with the number of the Israelites on 
entering and quitting the country. It is proposed, in the 
remainder of this paper, to consider briefly these six subjects. 

I. According to Baron Bunsen, the historic records of Egypt 
reach up to the year B.C. 9085. A sacerdotal monarchy was 
then established, and Bytis, the Theban priest of Ammon, was 
the first king. Before this Egypt had been republican, and 
separate governments had existed in the different nomes. 
Egyptian nationality commenced as early as B.C. 10,000. These 
conclusions are vaguely said to be drawn " from Egyptian re- 
cords," * or " from the monuments and other records ; "f expres- 
sions apt to beget a belief that there is really monumental 
evidence for them. Let us then see, in the first place, what is 
the true basis on which they rest. 

The Egyptian monuments contain no continuous chronology, 
and no materials from which a continuous chronological scheme 
can be framed. J The possibility of constructing such a scheme 



origine,' pp. 5 et seqq. There is also 
another mode in which the " Chal- 
daisms " may be accounted for. As 
Chaldee and Hebrew are sister tongues, 
having one common parent, the forms 
and expressions in question may have 
been common to both at first, but have 
died out in the Hebrew while they were 
retained in the Chaldee. Movers ob- 
serves with reason : — " Aramaic forms 
in a book are either a sign of a very 
early or of a very late composition." 
y Bonner Zeitschrift fur Philosophic,' 



xvi. 157.) Those in Genesis may be 
really " Archaisms." 

* ' Essays and Keviews,' p. 54. 

t Bunsen's ' Egypt,' vol. iv., p. 553. 

X " The history of the dynasties pre- 
ceding the 18th," says Mr. Stuart Poole, 
" is not told by any continuous series of 
monuments. Except those of the 4th 
and 12th dynasties there are scarcely 
any records of the age left to the pre- 
sent day." (' Biblical Dictionary,' vol. 
i. p. 509.) M. Bunsen also says, in one 
place, of the Egyptian monuments : — 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



253 



depends entirely upon the outline which has been preserved to 
us of the Sebennytic priest Manetho, who composed a history 
of Egypt under the early Ptolemies. This outline is in a 
very imperfect condition ; and the two versions of it, which we 
find in Syncellus and in the Armenian Eusebius, differ consider- 
ably. Still both agree in representing Egypt as governed by 
thirty dynasties of kings from Menes to Alexander, and the sum 
of the years which they assign to these dynasties is a little above 
(or a little below) 5000. The monuments have proved two 
things with respect to these lists : they have shown, in the first 
place, that (speaking generally) they are historical — that the 
persons mentioned were real men, who actually lived and 
reigned in Egypt ; while, secondly, they have shown that 
though all reigned in Egypt, all did not reign over the whole of 
Egypt, but while some were kings in one part of the country, 
others ruled in another. It is allowed on all hands — by M. 
Bunsen no less than by others — that no chronological scheme of 
any real value can be formed from Manetho's lists until it be 
first determined, either which dynasties and monarchs were 
contemporary, or what deduction from the sum total of the 
dynastic years is to be made on account of contemporaneousness. 
M. Bunsen regards this point as one which Manetho himself 
determined, and assumes that he was sure to determine it aright. 
He finds a statement in Syncellus,* that "Manetho made his 
dynasties cover a space of 113 generations, or 3555 years ;" 
and he accepts this statement as completely removing the diffi- 
culty, and absolutely establishing the historic fact that the 
accession of Menes to the crown of Egypt took place more than 
thirty-six centuries before our era.f He then professes to follow 
Manetho for the preceding period; but here he distorts and 
misrepresents him. Manetho gave his Egyptian dynasties alto- 
gether about 30,000 years. This 'long space he divided, how- 
ever, into a natural and a supernatural period. To the super- 
natural period, during which Egypt was governed by gods, 
demigods, and spirits, he assigned 24,925 years. To the 
natural period, which began with Menes, he gave at any rate 



" Such documents cannot indeed com- 
pensate for the want of written history. 
Even Chronology, its framework, can- 
not he elicited from them." (* Egypt.' 
vol. i., p. 32.) ° n 



* ' Chronograph.' p. 52, D. 
. t ' Egypt,' vol. i. pp. 86-89. Lep- 
sius, on the same grounds, and keeping 
closer to his authority, places Menes 
nearly 39 centuries before Christ. 



254 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



not much more than 5000. M. Bunsen, not content with this 
antiquity, but determining to find (or make) a greater, changes 
the order of Manetho's early dynasties, and by removing to a 
higher position, without authority and of his own mere fancy, 
one which is plainly supernatural, obtains for the natural period 
four dynasties, covering a space of 5212 years (or, as he makes 
it, 5462 years), which are capable of being represented as 
human. This, then, is the mode in which the date B.C. 9085 is 
reached. It is not obtained from the monuments, which have 
no chronology, or at any rate none earlier than B.C. 1525. It is 
not derived from Manetho, for it is in direct contradiction to his 
views, more than doubling the period during which, according 
to him, Egypt had had human kings. It is a mere theory of 
M. Bunsen's, to square with which Manetho's lists have been 
violently disturbed, and above 5000 years subtracted from his 
divine to be added to his human period. 

Even with respect to Menes, and the supposed date of B.C. 
3892 (according to Lepsius), or B.C. 3623 (according to M. 
Bunsen), for his accession, on what does it in reality depend ? 
Not on any monumental evidence, but simply on the supposi- 
tion that in a certain passage (greatly disputed *) of Syncellus, 
he has correctly represented Manetho's views, and on the further 
supposition that Manetho's views were absolutely right. But is 
it reasonable to suppose that Manetho had data for determining 
with such exactitude an event so remote, even if it be a real 
event at all,t as the accession of Menes ? It is plain and pal- 
pable, and moreover universally admitted, that between the an- 
cient monarchy (or rather monarchies) of Egypt and the later 
kingdom, there intervened a time of. violent disturbance — the 
period known as the domination of the Hyksos — during which 
the native Egyptians suffered extreme oppression, and through- 
out Egypt all was disorder and confusion. The notices of this 
period are so vague and uncertain, that moderns dispute whether 



* Bockh in Germany, and Mons. C. 
Muller in France, have disputed M. 
Bunsen's conclusions from the passage 
of Syncellus. The latter thinks that it 
is a Pseudo-Manetho to whom Syncellus 
refers. The former regards the passage 
as corrupt, and suspects that Annianus 
was quoted, not Manetho. 

t "Whether Menes was an historic per- 
sonage at all may reasonably be doubted. 



It is not pretended that he left any mo- 
numents. As a name closely resembling 
his is found in the earliest traditions of 
various nations, e. g. Menu in India, 
Minos in Crete, Manis in Phrygia, 
Manes in Lydia, and Mannus in Ger- 
many, there is at least reason to suspect 
that he belongs to myth rather than to 
history. 



Essay VL] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



255 



it lasted 500, 600, 900, or 2000 years * Few monuments be- 
long to it. It is extremely doubtful whether an Egyptian of 
Manetho's age, honestly investigating the records of the past, 
could have carried on chronology, with any approach to exactness, 
beyond the commencement of the eighteenth dynasty, which 
effected the expulsion of the Byksos or Shepherd kings. From 
that time Egypt had been united, and had been a tolerably settled 
monarchy. Previously, the country had been divided into a mul- 
titude of states, sometimes more, sometimes fewer in number, 
each knowing very little of the rest, all inclined to magnify their 
own duration and antiquity, and none able effectually to check 
the others. Let it be granted that Manetho honestly endea- 
voured to collect and arrange the lists of kings in the several 
states among which Egypt had been parcelled out. What a 
task was before him! Eoyal monuments, or dynastic lists 
of better or worse authority, might give him the names of 
the monarchs and the number of years that each had borne 
the royal title. But as "association" was widely practised 
in Egypt — two, three, and even more kings occupying the 
throne together — it would have been a work of extreme diffi- 
culty, without full and detailed records, which can scarcely 
be supposed to have generally survived the Hyksos period, 
to make out from the length of the reigns the duration of any 
dynasty. And to determine what dynasties were contemporary 
and what consecutive would have been a still harder task. 
It is extremely doubtful whether Manetho really made any 
effort to overcome these difficulties. Setting aside the single 
disputed passage of Syncellus, we have no evidence that he did. 
His lists, as they have come down to us, both in Syncellus and 
Eusebius, are a mere enumeration, in a single line, of thirty 
dynasties of kings, with an estimate of the years of each dynasty, 
evidently formed by merely adding together the years of the 
several reigns. There is no trace in either epitome of any 
allowance being made, either on account of contemporary kings 
within a dynasty, or on account of contemporary dynasties. 
Apparently, Manetho either declined the task of arranging and 
completing the chronology as one for which he had no sufficient 
data, or preferred to leave the impression on foreigners that 
the dynasties and kings were all consecutive, and that Egypt 



. * Btrasen, ' Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 508 ; ' Bibl. Diet.,' vol. i. p. 508. 



256 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



had a history stretching back fifty centuries before Alexander ! 
Other Egyptian priests before him had made even greater ex- 
aggerations.* 

If it be still thought that the mere opinion of men so well 
acquainted with the Egyptian monuments, as Bunsen and 
Lepsius, ought to have weight, despite the weakness of the 
argumentative grounds on which they rest their conclusions, let 
it be remembered that others, as deeply read in hieroglyphic 
lore, and as capable of forming a judgment, have come to con- 
clusions wholly different. Sir Gardner Wilkinson inclines to 
place the accession of Menes about B.C. 2690,t and Mr. Stuart 
Poole gives as his first year B.C. 27174 These writers believe 
that the number of contemporaneous dynasties has been much 
under-estimated by the German savans, who have especially 
erred in regarding the Theban dynasties as, all of them, subse- 
quent to the Memphite. They consider that Manetho's first 
and third Theban dynasties were contemporary with his third, 
fourth, and fifth Memphite ; that the first and second Shepherd 
dynasties ruled at the same time in different parts of Lower 
Egypt ; and that the dynasty of Choites (Manetho's 14th) was 
contemporary with the two Shepherd dynasties above men- 
tioned, and with the second Theban. They do not deny that 
their arrangement of the dynasties is to some extent conjectural ; 
but they maintain that, while the idea of it was derived from a 
close inspection of Manetho's lists, it is also " strikingly con- 
firmed by the monuments." § While names of such weight can 
be quoted on the side of a moderate Egyptian chronology, it 
cannot be reasonably argued that Egyptian records have dis- 
proved the Biblical narrative. 

Still less can it be argued that the records of other nations, so 
far as they have any pretension to be considered historical, con- 
flict with the chronology of the Bible. The Babylonians 
indeed, the Indians, and the Chinese, in their professed histories 
of ancient times, carry back the antiquity of our race for several 
hundred thousand years. But it is admitted that in every case 
these large numbers are purely mythical ; and, in truth, the 
authentic histories of all these nations begin even later than the 



* Herod, ii. 100 and 142, 143. 
t See the writer's 'Herodotus,' vol. 
ii. pp. 342, 313. 



X ' Biblical Dictionary,' vol. i. p. 508. 
§ Ibid. p. 507. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



257 



Egyptian. India has no historical documents earlier than the 
third,* or China than the sixth century B.C. Indian history 
scarcely goes back beyond the time of Alexander ; Chinese is 
not thought by those who place most faith in the early literature 
of the country to ascend any higher than the year B.c. 2637.| 
The Babylonian historian, Berosus, while he claimed for the 
human race an antiquity of above 466,000 years, arranged his 
dynasties in such a way as to make it palpable that the historic 
period began, at the earliest, in B.C. 2458. This is the conclu- 
sion of Sir Henry Eawlinson in England, of Gutschmid and 
Brandis in Germany 4 These critics divide the nine dynasties of 
Berosus into two mythic ones (reigning the extravagant periods 
of 432,000 and 34,080 years), and seven historic ones, all reign- 
ing moderate and possible periods, varying between 87 and 526 
years. It might have seemed incredible that in the nineteenth 
century any critic could take a different view. M. Bunsen, 
however, believing that he has " devised a method " § whereby 
the historical part of the second dynasty, which he arbitrarily 
divides, may be reduced to 1550 years, adds that space of time 
to Berosus's historic chronology, and decides that- the regular 
registration of the oldest Chaldsean kings commenced B.C. 3784. 
He thus assumes the partially historic character of a dynasty 
said to have reigned more than 34,000 years, two kings of which 
— Chomasbelus and Evechius — are made to occupy the throne 
for above 5000 years ! It seems needless to examine the 
"method" whereby, from data thus manifestly unhistoric, an 
exact conclusion, claiming to be historically certain, is drawn. j| 
On the whole it would seem that no profane history of an 
authentic character mounts up to an earlier date than the 27th 
or 28th century before Christ. Egyptian history begins about 
B.C. 2700 ; Chinese, perhaps, in B.C. 2637 ; Babylonian in B.C. 



* See the late Professor Wilson's In- 
troduction to the 'Kig-Veda Sanhita,' 
pp. xlvi., xlvii. 

f Eemusat, * Nouveaux Melanges 
Asiatiques,' vol. i. p. 65; Bunsen, 
1 Egypt,' vol. iii. pp. 379-407. 

X Gutschmid, 'Kheinisches Museum,' 
vol. viii. p. 252 et seqq. ; Brandis, ' Ee- 
rum Assyriarmn Tempora emendata,' pp. 
16, 17. 

§ 6 Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 411. 

jj One method, however, whereby M. 



Bunsen exaggerates his Babylonian 
chronology seems worthy of notice. It 
is the method of mistranslation. Philo 
Byblius having observed in his work 
about Cities that Babylon was founded 
1002 years {imai xiAuns 5vo) before Se- 
miramis, M. Bunsen renders the words 
in brackets by " two thousand years," 
thus gaining for his chronology near a 
thousand years at a stroke. ^See his 
'Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 414, and again p. 
491.) 



S 



258 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



2458 ; Assyrian in B.C. 1273 ; Greek, with the Trojan War, in 
B.C. 1250, or, perhaps, with Hercules, a century earlier ; Lydian 
in B.C. 1229 ; Phoenician about the same period ;* Carthaginian 
in B.C. 880; Macedonian about B.C. 720; Median not before 
B.C. 708 ; Eoman in the middle of the same century ; Persian in 
B.C. 558 ; Indian, about B.C. 350 ; Mexican and Peruvian not 
till after our era.f The oldest human constructions remaining 
upon the earth are the Pyramids, and these date from about 
B.C. 2400 ; { the brick temples of Babylonia seem, none of them, 
earlier than B.C. 2300 ; § B.C. 2000 would be a high date for 
the first Cyclopian walls in Greece or Italy ; the earliest rock- 
inscriptiohs belong to nearly the same period. If man has 
existed upon the earth ten or twenty thousand years, as M. 
Bunsen supposes, why has he left no vestiges of himself till 
within the last five thousand ?|| It cannot be said that his earlier 
works would necessarily have perished ; for there is nothing to 
hinder the Pyramids or the Birs Nimrud from standing several 
thousand years longer. It is remarked that in Egypt the most 
ancient monuments exhibit but slight traces of rudeness, and 
that the arts within two centuries of Menes are in a very 
advanced condition, so that civilisation must have made great 
progress even before the age of Menes. But "the consti- 
tutional development of Egyptian life" into the condition 
reached in the time of the early monuments, does not require 
a term of five or six thousand years, as M. Bunsen argues,1F 
but rather one of five or six hundred years, which is what the 
Biblical numbers will allow. There is nothing surprising in a 
high civilisation, even within a very short time from the Deluge ; 



* See the writer's 'Herodotus,' vol. I be said to be such vestiges. But the ex- 
iv. p. 249. The first-known Phoenician j tremely doubtful age of the latter has 
Mng is Abibal, the father of Hiram, been well shown by the ' Quarterly Ee- 
David's contemporary. He cannot be view' (No. 210, pp. 419-421). The value 
placed earlier than b.c. 1100. of the former as evidence of extreme 

f See Prescott, ' History of the Con- | human antiquity must depend on two 



quest of Mexico,' vol. i. p. 13 ; ' History 
of the Conquest of Peru,' vol. i. pp. 10: 
14. 



questions, neither of which has yet been 
solved — 1. Are they of the same age as 
the formation in which they are found ? 



| Wilkinson in the writer's ' Herodo- | and 2. Is that formation itself of an 



tus,' vol. ii. p. 343 ; Stuart Poole in the 
' Biblical Dictionary,' vol. i. p. 508. 

§ Sir H. Kawlinson in the writer's 
' Herodotus,' vol. i. p. 435. 

|| The "flint weapons in the drift," 
and Mr. Horner's Egyptian pottery, will 



antiquity very remote ? It has been 
clearly shown by a writer in 'Black- 
wood's Magazine ' (No. 540, pp. 422- 
439), that the high antiquity of the drift 
is at any rate " not proven." 
1 ' Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 571. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



259 



for the arts of life, which flourished in the ante-diluyian world,* 
would have been preserved by those who survived the catastro- 
phe, and might rapidly revive among their descendants. Bather, 
it is surprising that, except in Egypt, there should be so few 
traces of an early civilisation. Babylonian art, for many cen- 
turies after the first establishment of the kingdom (b.c. 2458), 
is exceedingly rude and primitive ; the Greek and Italian 
buildings, approaching to the same date, are of the roughest 
construction ; it is not till about the year B.C. 1000 that a really 
advanced civilisation appears in any part of Asia, nor much 
before B.C. 600 that it can be traced in Europe. Thus, monu- 
mental and historical evidence alike indicate that the " Origines " 
of our race are recent, and the dates established on anything 
like satisfactory evidence, fall, in every case, within the time 
allowed to post-diluvian man by Scripture. 

For the date of the Deluge, which we are most justified in 
drawing from the Sacred documents, is not, as commonly sup- 
posed, B.C. 2348, but rather B.C. 3099, or even B.C. 3159 — sixty 
years earlier. t The modern objectors to the Chronology of 
Scripture seek commonly to tie down their opponents to the 
present Hebrew text; J but there is no reason why they should 
submit to this restriction. The Septuagint Version was regarded 
as of primary authority during the first ages of the Christian 
Church : it is the version commonly quoted in the New Testa- 
ment ; and thus, where it differs from the Hebrew, it is at least 
entitled to equal attention. The larger chronology of the Sep- 
tuagint would, therefore, even if it stood alone, have as good a 
claim as the shorter one of the Hebrew text, to be considered 
the Chronology of Scripture. It does not, however, stand alone. 
For the. period between the Flood and Abraham, the Septuagint 
has the support of another ancient and independent version — 
the Samaritan. It is argued that the Septuagint numbers were 
enlarged by the Alexandrian Jews in order to bring the Hebrew 
chronology into harmony with the Egyptian ;§ but there is no 
conceivable reason why the Samaritans should have altered their 



* Gen. iv. 20-22. i 
t See the ' Biblical Dictionary,' sub 

voc. Chronology, and Mr. W. Palmer's 

'Egyptian Chronicles,' p. 896. 
j Bunsen, ' Egypt,' yol. iy. p. 402 ; ' 



' Westminster Eeview,' No. 38, p. 569 ; 
' Essays and Keviews,' pp. 54, 55. 

§ ' Westminster Keview,' 1. s. c. ; Bun- 
sen, ' Egypt,' vol. i. p. 185 ; vol. iv. p. 
396. 

S 2 



260 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



Pentateuch in this direction, and no very ready mode of ac- 
counting for the identity * of the numbers in these two versions, 
but by supposing that they are the real numbers of the original. 
This identity it has been usual to keep out of sight ; but it is a 
most important feature in the case, and furnishes a solid ground 
for preferring, apart from all historical considerations, that 
longer system of Biblical Chronology with which Egyptian and 
all other profane history is found to be in accordance. 

Besides the purely historic objections to the Biblical Chrono- 
logy which have been here examined, another semi-historic one 
has been recently taken, which seems to require some notice. 
Languages, it is said, bear traces of having all proceeded from a 
common stock. Time was, when " the whole earth was of one 
language and of one speech." t But this time must have been 
immensely remote. Languages grow but slowly. It has taken 
nearly 2000 years to develop modern French, Italian, and 
Spanish out of Latin. Must it not have taken much longer to 
develop Latin, Greek, German, Celtic, Slavonic, Zend, Sanscrit, 
out of their mother-speech? And that mother-speech itself 
which had an affinity, and so a connexion, with the Semitic and 
Turanian forms of language, yet was far more widely separated 
from them than its daughter tongues from one another, what a 
vast period must have been required for its formation and diver- 
gence from the other linguistic types ! Even the primitive tongue 
itself did not spring to its full height at once, or reach the era 
of decay and change till after a long term of years. Twenty- 
one thousand years — "the period of one great revolution of the 
globe upon its axis " — is (we are told) " a very probable term 
for the development of human language in the shortest line ;" 
and so the conclusion is drawn, that the true era of man's crea- 
tion is not B.C. 9085, when Egyptian history is said to have 
begun, nor B.C. 14,000, when Hamitism and Semitism were first 
" deposited," but six thousand years before the earlier of these 
two dates— B.C. 20,000 ! £ 



* The identity is complete, if we reject j Clinton's ' Fasti Hellenici,' vol. i. p. 287 ; 
from the Septuagint the false reading of i ' Biblical Dictionary,' vol. i. p. 319.) 
some copies (179 for 79) in Gen. xi. 24, f Gen. xi. 1. 

and omit the interpolated Cainan, who j Bunsen, ' Egypt,' vol. iv. pp. 560- 
was unknown to Philo, Josephus, Theo- i 566, and p. 485. 
philus of Antioch, and Eusebius. (See 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



261 



This argument claims an inductive character. It bases itself 
on the historical ground, that a certain number of years have 
been required for the development of French, Italian, Spanish, 
Wallachian, &c, out of Latin ; and assumes that from this the 
rate of change or growth in language is determinately, or ap- 
proximately, known. The rate is viewed as relative to the 
degree of change or divergence, so that as Celtic, Slavonic, 
German, Greek, Latin, and Sanscrit are far more unlike one 
another than French, Italian, and Spanish, a far longer period 
must be allowed for their formation.* The argument thus 
gathers strength at each stage ; and as there are at least four 
stages, the formula becomes something very much like this : — 
a -f 10a + 100a + 1000a = s; so that it may seem a moderate 
estimate to say, that s = 21,000 years. 

* But the following considerations detract from the force of the 
reasoning. The induction on which it rests is from a single 
instance — the case of Latin and its daughter tongues. It does 
not at all follow, that because a particular language under par- 
ticular circumstances took a certain time to blossom into new 
tongues ; therefore, every other language of a similar type 
would, under all conceivable circumstances, do the same. 

The unit which is assumed to be known, and which is made 
the basis of the whole calculation — the a of the above equation — 
is in reality unknown. It is impossible to say how long it took 
for Latin to change into French or Italian.- Latin was probably 
imperfectly learnt by the Italians and the Gauls from the first, 
and a language far more like Italian than classical Latin was 
probably spoken in the provinces of Italy at a very early date. 
We know at the utmost what the date is of the first extant 
French or Italian document. We have no means of deciding 
when French or Italian first began to be a spoken tongue. 

The argument assumes as certain that equal linguistic changes 
must have occupied equal periods of time at all portions of the 
world's history, which is much the same as to assume that con- 
stitutional changes in states must be equal in equal times ; or 
that, because B, a youth of eighteen, 5 ft. 10 in. high, grew half 
an inch between the 1st of January, 1860, and the 1st of 



* " If the step from Latin to Italian 
be taken as a unit, the previous step 
mnst be reckoned at least at ten or at 



twenty." (Bunsen's ' Egypt,' vol. iv. pp. 
562, 563.) 



262 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



January, 1861, therefore he grew at the same rate all his pre- 
vious lifetime. Such an assumption, were it applied to dis- 
cover the age of the youth by one who possessed no other data, 
might lead to the conclusion that he verged upon 140 ! It is 
quite possible that similar reasoning, applied to the age of 
language, may have produced a term of years almost equally in 
excess of the truth. 

Not only the analogy of growth generally, but certain known 
linguistic facts favour the view, that when language was still 
young, it grew with a rapidity quite unknown to its later stages. 
Nothing so much tends to fix and stereotype a language as a 
literature. When, therefore, there was as yet no literature to 
keep the vagaries of speech in check, it would have been in a 
perpetual flux and change, and may, in a comparatively short 
space, have undergone the greatest modifications. Again, when 
literature is wanting, yet men live together in political commu- 
nities of a large size, the requirements of social intercourse with 
a wide circle act as a safeguard against rapid dialectical change. 
But in the simpler and earlier times, before such communities 
were formed, when men were chiefly or wholly nomades, and 
lived in small and isolated bodies without much intercourse with 
one another, this check would not have existed. Linguistic 
changes may, under such circumstances, have taken place with 
extraordinary quickness, and a growth equal to that, which 
would in later times, and under other circumstances, have 
required five hundred or a thousand years, may have been con- 
tained within an ordinary lifetime. "Tribes," says Professor 
M. Miiller, " who have no literature, and no sort of intellectual 
occupation, seem occasionally to take a delight in working their 
language to the highest pitch of grammatical expansion. The 
American dialects are a well-known instance ; and the greater 
the seclusion of a tribe, the more amazing the rank vegetation 
of their grammar. We can, at present, hardly form a correct 
idea with what feeling a savage nation looks upon its language ; 
whether, it may be, as a plaything, a kind of intellectual amuse- 
ment — a maze in which the mind likes to lose and to find itself. 
But" the result is the same everywhere. If the work of agglu- 
tination has once commenced, and there is nothing like litera- 
ture or society to keep it within limits, two villages, separated 
only for a few generations, will become mutually unintelligible. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



263 



This takes place in America, as well as on the borders of 
China and India; and in the north of Asia, Messerschmidt 
relates, that the Ostiakes, though really speaking the same lan- 
guage everywhere, have produced so many words and forms 
jDeculiar to each tribe, that even within the limits of twelve or 
twenty German miles, conversation between them becomes ex- 
tremely difficult. It must be remembered also, that the Dic- 
tionary of these languages is small, if compared with a Latin or 
a Greek Thesaurus. The conversation of nomadic tribes moves 
within a narrow circle ; and with the great facility of forming- 
new words at random, and the great inducement that a solitary 
life holds out to invent for the objects which form the world of 
a shepherd or huntsman, new appellations — half poetical, per- 
haps, or satirical — we can understand how, after a few genera- 
tions, the dictionary of a nomadic tribe may have gone, as it 
were, through more than one edition."* These observations, 
which are made in reference to Turanian dialects, have a more 
extended bearing. They show that while the inhabitants of the 
earth continued nomadic, and without a literature, language 
would alter at a rate very much beyond that which is found to 
prevail since they have gathered into large communities, each 
with its own treasure of written law, legend, or history. 

Further, it is obvious to remark that the whole argument 
turns upon a theory of language, which can never be anything 
more than an hypothesis — a theory, moreover, which ignores 
altogether the confusion of Babel, ascribing as it does all the 
changes and diversities of human speech to the operation of 
natural causes. Those persons who believe the miracle recorded 
in Gen. xi. 1 — 9, will see that if the Divine fiat produced in a 
moment of time a number of diversities of speech, which in the 
natural course of things would only have gradually been de- 
veloped, language cannot but present the appearance of being- 
older than it really is. 

It seems, therefore, that nothing has really been as yet dis- 
covered, either in the facts of history, or in those of language, 
that militates against the chronological scheme of Scripture, if 
we regard the Septuagint and Samaritan versions as the best 
exponents of the original text in respect of the genealogy of the 



* ' Philosophy of Universal History,' vol. iii. p. 483. 



264 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VL 



Patriarchs from Shem to Abraham. Whether the chronology 
of these versions admits of further expansion ; whether, since the 
chronologies of the Hebrew Bible, the Samaritan Pentateuch, 
and the Septuagint differ, we can depend on any one of them ; 
or whether we'must not consider that this portion of revelation 
has been lost to us by the mistakes of copyists or the intentional 
alterations of systematisers, it is not necessary at present to 
determine. " Our treasure," as before observed, " is in earthen 
vessels." The revealed Word of God has been continued in the 
world in the same way as other written compositions, by the 
multiplication of copies. No miraculous aid is vouchsafed to 
the transcribers, who are liable to make mistakes, and may not 
always have been free from the design of bending Scripture to 
their own views. That we have a wonderfully pure and perfect 
text of the Pentateuch, considering its antiquity, is admitted ; but 
doubts must ever attach to the chronology, not only because in 
all ancient MSS. numbers are especially liable to accidental 
corruption, but also, and more especially, from the fact that 
there is so wide a difference in this respect between the Hebrew, 
the Samaritan, and the Greek copies.* Still, at present, we 
have no need to suppose that the numbers have in every case 
suffered. All the requirements of profane history are suf- 
ficiently met by the adoption of the Septuagint and Samaritan 
date for the Deluge ; and this is the date which is really most 
authoritative, since it has in its favour two out of the three 
ancient versions. 

II. An authentic character is denied to the Pentateuch on 
account of the narrative contained in it of the great Flood. This 
narrative is viewed as the traditional representation of a real 
event, but as unhistoric in most of its details, and more especially 
as untrue in regard to the assertion which is so strongly made, 
that all mankind, except a single family, were destroyed on the 
occasion.! The Deluge, it is said, was local, affecting only that 
portion of Asia in which were located the Arians and the 
Semites. It did not extend to the Egyptians, or to the Chinese, 
or to the Turanian races generally. This conclusion is pro- 



* Although in the list of patriarchs 
from Shem to Abraham, the Samaritan 
and the Septuagint coincide, they differ 
widely in the preceding list from Adam 



to Noah. The Samaritan has there a 
term of years even shorter than the 
Hebrew. 

f Gen. vii. 21-23. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



265 



fessedly drawn from " the infallible linguistic science,"* or, in 
other words, from those yiews of the history of language, the 
changes it has undergone, and the time occupied by them, which 
have been just shown to be arbitrary and not very tenable 
hypotheses. It is further regarded as confirmed by the alleged 
fact, that while among most of the Semitic and Arian races 
there was. a distinct and clear tradition of the Flood, as among 
the Babylonians, the Indians, the Armenians, the Phrygians, the 
Lithuanians, the Goths, the Celts, and the Greeks ; neither in 
China, nor in Egypt, nor among the " old Turanians " was any 
such tradition current. Here the argument is strong ; but it 
attains its strength by a combination of exaggeration on the one 
side, with understatement on the other. It is not true that "we 
find allusions to the Flood everywhere among the Iranians and 
Semites." t The Flood does not appear in the Zendavesta ; it 
was not, so far as is known, among the traditions of the Arabs, 
or the Phoenicians, or the Romans, or the Slaves. On the other 
hand, traditions of it were not entirely wanting in China, in 
Egypt, or among the Turanians. 

The Chinese speak of a " first heaven " — an age of innocence, 
when " the whole creation enjoyed a state of happiness ; when 
every thing was beautiful, every thing was good; all beings 
were perfect in their kind;" whereto succeeded a " second 
heaven," introduced by a great convulsion. " The pillars of 
heaven were broken — the earth shook to its foundations — the 
heavens sunk lower towards the north— the sun, the moon, and 
the stars changed their motions — the earth fell to pieces ; and 
the waters enclosed within its bosom burst forth with violence, and 
overflowed it. Man having rebelled against heaven, the system 
of the universe was totally disordered. The sun was eclipsed, 
the planets altered their courses, and the grand harmony of 
nature was disturbed." J 

In Egypt, according to Plato, the teaching of the priests was, 
not that there had been no Deluge, but that there had been 
several. They believed that from time to time, in consequence 
of the anger of the Gods, the earth was visited by a terrible 
catastrophe. The agent of destruction was sometimes fire, 



* Bunsen, ' Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 472, and 
p. 559. 

t Ibid. p. 464. 



t Faber, ' Horse Mosaicae,' ch. iv. pp. 
147, 148. 



266 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



sometimes water. In the conflagrations, all countries were 
burnt up but Egypt, which was protected by the Nile ; and in 
the deluges, all were submerged except Egypt, where rain never 
fell. The last catastrophe, they said, had been a deluge ; it 
took place above 8000 years before Solon, and not only swept 
away the Greeks, as they were themselves aware, but perma- 
nently submerged a vast island in the Atlantic Ocean, previously 
the seat of a great conquering monarchy.* It does not destroy 
the traditional character of these latter statements, that they 
are coupled with a theory of repeated mundane catastrophes ; 
neither does it much lessen the value of the evidence, in the 
case of a people making such absurd pretensions to antiquity as 
the Egyptians, that Egypt is supposed to have been exempt 
from the general ruin. M. Bunsen admits that the oldest tradi- 
tions of Egypt " seem here and there to retain the echoes of a 
knowledge of some violent convulsions in nature,"! while he 
denies that these traditions constitute a reminiscence of the his- 
torical Flood. It is at least as reasonable to hold that the one 
convulsion of which they had some real knowledge was that 
great catastrophe, and that in regard to the rest they merely 
represented historically the conclusions at which they had 
arrived by speculation. 

With regard to the belief of the Turanian races, it may be 
true that those of Europe and Asia have no traditions of a 
Deluge among them, although this point has hardly been as yet 
sufficiently established; but if we hold (as is now commonly 
done) X the Malays to be a Turanian offshoot, and the Polynesian 
islanders to be Malays, then it must be allowed that traces of a 
belief in the Deluge exist also in this ethnic family. " Tradi- 
tions of the Deluge," says Mr. Ellis, " have been found to exist 
among the natives of the South Sea Islands, from the earliest 
periods of their history. . . The principal facts are the same 
in the traditions prevailing among the inhabitants of the different 
groups, although they differ in several minor particulars. In 
one group the accounts stated, that in ancient times Taarsa, the 
principal god according to their mythology, being angry with 



* ' Thnseus,' p. 21. 

f ' Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 559. 

X M. Midler, in the 'Philosophy of 



Universal History,' vol. hi. pp. 403-429 ; 
'Languages of the Seat of War,' p. 110, 
1st edition. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



267 



men on account of their disobedience to his will, overturned the 
world into the sea, when the earth sunk in the waters, excepting 
a few projecting points, which, remaining above its surface, con- 
stituted the present cluster of islands. The memorial preserved 
by the inhabitants of Eimeo states, that after the inundation of 
the land, when the water subsided, a man landed from a canoe 
near Tiataepua in their island, and erected an altar in honour of 
his god. The tradition which prevails in the Leeward Islands 
is intimately connected with the island of Kaiatea." Here the 
story is that a fisherman disturbed the sea-god with his hooks, 
whereupon the god determined to destroy mankind. The 
fisherman, however, obtained mercy, and was directed to take 
refuge in a certain small islet, whither he betook himself with his 
wife, his child, one friend, and specimens of all the domestic 
animals. The sea then rose, and submerged the other islands, 
destroying all the inhabitants. But the fisherman and his com- 
panions were unharmed, and afterwards removing from their 
islet to Kaiatea became the progenitors of the present people.* 
Thus, if the South Sea Islanders belong to the Turanian family, 
it would seem that that family, no less than the Arian and 
Semitic, has reminiscences of the Great Catastrophe which once 
befel mankind. t 

The result is, that there is no marked difference, in respect of 
traditions of the Deluge, between the different races of men. 
No race is without some tradition on the subject, while in none 
is the tradition spread universally among all the nations into 
which the race subdivides. Various circumstances have caused 
the event to be vividly or faintly apprehended, to be stored in 
the memory of a nation, or to be allowed to fade from it. If 
the Semitic tradition is the clearest and most circumstantial, 
while the Turanian is the dimmest and slightest, it is probably 
because the Turanians generally were without a literature, while 
among the Semites the tradition took a written form early. If 
in Egypt, while the Deluge is not unknown, it makes little 
figure, notwithstanding the early use of letters in that country, 
it is perhaps because the Egyptians did not choose to keep it 



* ' Polynesian Researches,' vol. ii. pp. 
57-59. 

t The Mexicans and Peruvians, who 



had very clear traditions of the Flood, 
were also probably of Turanian origin. 



268 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



in mind, since, in their desire to be considered autochthonous 
and of immense antiquity, they seem to have determinately 
severed all the links which connected them with their primitive 
Asiatic abodes.* If, on the contrary, among the Arians, though 
they had no very early literature, the reminiscence is vivid, it 
may be ascribed to the liveliness, impressibility, and poetic tone 
of their minds, which such an event as the Deluge was calcu- 
lated to affect strongly, and to their comparative honesty, which 
led them to cherish in most cases the traditions uniting them 
with primitive times. 

III. The objections taken to the ethnology of Genesis are 
limited to two. It is allowed that a high antiquity, and a great 
historical value, belong to the Toldoth Beni Noah, or * Book of 
the generations of the sons of Noah," which forms the tenth 
chapter of the First Book of Moses. But it is maintained that 
in its present state this chapter is the work of a " compiler,'' who 
misunderstood his materials, and that, it requires correction from 
the better knowledge of the moderns.! The two mistakes which 
are especially charged on the document are — first, that, by making 
Canaan a son of Ham, it connects the Canaanites ethnically with 
the Egyptians, whereas they were an entirely distinct people, 
not Hamites, but Semites ; and secondly, that, by declaring 
Cush to have begotten Nimrod, it makes that conqueror and 
his kingdom Ethiopian, whereas they were in reality Cossaean, 
and so Turanian or Scythic. In the latter case it is supposed 
that the " compiler " was misled by a resemblance of words ; in 
the former, that he misinterpreted a geographical fact ethni- 
cally. 

But the latest research tends to vindicate the ethnology of 
Genesis in both the disputed cases. The supposed Semitic cha- 
racter of the Canaanites rests upon two grounds — first, their 
presumed identity with the Phoenicians, and secondly, the 



* " The evidence of the Egyptians," j change of seat, and the settlement in 
says Mr. Stuart Poole, " as to the pri- ; Egypt of a civilized race, which either 
meval history of their race and country ; wishing to be believed autochthonous, 

is extremely indefinite There is a I or having lost all ties that could keep 

very short and extremely obscure time up the traditions of its first dwell ing- 
of tradition, and at no great distance j place, filled up the commencement of its 
from the earliest date at which it can be | history with materials drawn from my- 
held to end we come upon the clear j thology." ('Biblical Dictionary,' vol. i. 
light of history in the days of the Pyra- ; p. 507.) 

mids. The indications are of a sudden i f Bunsen, ' Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 417. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



269 



Semitic etymology of certain Canaanitish names — e. g., Melchi- 
sedek, Abimeleck, Adonibezek, Mamre, Eshcol, Kirjath-Arba, 
&c. This last argument is undoubtedly important, though it is 
far from decisive. For, firstly, language is not a certain sign of 
race, since occasionally a nation has adopted a completely 
foreign tongue. Secondly, the names, as given in the Hebrew 
Scriptures, are perhaps not Canaanitish words at all, but only 
the Semitic equivalents of the native (Hamitic) terms. Thirdly, 
the true stock of the Canaanites may have been Hamitic, yet 
even before the time of Abraham they may have received a 
Semitic infusion from the valley of the Euphrates ; and Semitic 
names may thus have been introduced among them. As for the 
other argument, though it has great names in its favour, there is 
really very little to be said for it. Phoenicia, as a country, is 
distinguishable from Canaan, in which it may, perhaps, have 
been included, but of which it was at any rate only a part ; and 
the Phoenician people present in many respects a strong and 
marked contrast to the Canaanites, so that there is great reason 
to believe that they were an entirely different race.* That their 
ethnic character was really Hamitic seems to be indicated by the 
Babylonian tradition in Eupolemus,t that Canaan was the grand- 
father of Cush and Mestraim (Mizraim). It is further evidenced 
by the names of various places in their country, as Baalbek, " the 
house of Baal," where bek is the Egyptian root found in Atar- 
bechis, " the house of Athor " — Marathus, which seems to be 
Martu, the Hamitic term for " the West " — Beth-shan, which 
in Semitic was Beth-shemesh, "the house of the sun," &c. 
Finally, it is thought to be absolutely proved by the Hittite 
names, which occur abundantly in the Assyrian inscriptions, and 
which are found to be unmistakably of a Hamitic type and for- 
mation. 

The Cushite descent of the Babylonians has still more ample 



* See the writer's 'Herodotus,' vol. 
iv. pp. 243-245, where the point is ar- 
gued at length. " The Canaanites," it 
is noted, " are fierce and intractable war- 
riors, rejoicing in the prancing steeds 
and chariots of iron, neither given to 
commerce nor to any of the arts of peace ; 
the Phoenicians are quiet and peaceable, 
a nation of traffickers, skilful in naviga- 
tion and in the arts both useful and 
ornamental ; unwarlike except at sea, 



and wholly devoted to commerce. Again, 
whereas between the real Canaanites 
and the Jews there was deadly and 
perpetual hostility, until the former were 
utterly rooted out and destroyed, the 
Jews and Phoenicians were on terms of 
perpetual amity, — an amity encouraged 
by the best princes, who would scarcely 
have contracted a friendship with the 
accursed race." 

t ' Fragm. Hist. Gr.' vol. iii. p. 212. 



270 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



evidence in its favour. Linguistic research, harmonising in 
this instance at once with classical tradition and with the Scrip- 
tural account, shows the early Babylonians to have been, not 
only Hamitic, but determinately of Cushite origin.* All the 
ancient Babylonian documents are in a dialect, the vocabulary 
of which has a closer connexion with the native languages of 
Abyssinia than with any other known form of speech. Nor is 
this a mere coincidence. The evidence of monuments (Him- 
yaric, Chaldean, and Susian) shows, that a homogeneous race 
was spread Jn very ancient times from the country upon the 
Upper Nile, along the southern coast of Arabia, to the shores of 
the Persian Gulf, and thence into Susiana, whence it probably 
passed, by way of Gredrosia, to India. M. Bunsen decides that 
" an Asiatic Kush (or Ethiopia) exists only in the imagination of 
Biblical interpreters, and is the child of their despair." f But 
ancient lore and modern research are equally against this view. 
Homer knew the Ethiopians to be " divided," and to dwell 
" towards the rising and the setting sun." % Hesiod made 
Memnon, the son of the Dawn, and the traditional founder of 
Susa, an Ethiopian king. § Pindar taught that this same 
Memnon brought an army of Ethiopians to the relief of Troy. || 
Herodotus was told of Asiatic Ethiopians as contained within 
the Persian empire, and assigned them their place in the 
satrapies of Darius, If and in the army of Xerxes.** Ephorus 
gave all the shores of the Erythraean Sea, or Southern Ocean, to 
the Ethiopians ;tt and so, according to Strabo, did the ancient 
Greek writers generally.^ The names Kissia, and Kosssea, 
Kusan,§§ and Kutch or Kooch, which have clung to portions of 
the south coast of Asia, from the time of Herodotus to the 
present day, confirm the classical belief — a belief which is 
further evidenced by the genealogists, who almost universally 
connect Belus, the mythic progenitor of the Babylonians, with 
iEgyptus and Libya. II II Thus the Asiatic Ethiopia, which is 



* Sir H. Kawlinson, in the writer's 
'Herodotus,' vol. i. p. 442, note: com- 
pare Kalisch, ' Comment, on Genesis,' p. 
174, E. T. 

f ' Philosophy of Universal History,' 
vol. iii. p. 191. 

t ' Odyssey,' i. 23, 24. 

§ 4 Theogonia,' 984, 985. 

|| 6 Nemea,' iii. 62, 63. 



f Herod, iii. 94. 

** Ibid. vii. 70. 

ft Ap. Strab. i. 2, § 28. 

XX Strab. i. 2, § 27. 

§§ Kusan was the name given to the 
country east of Kerman throughout the 
whole of the Sassanian period. 

1111 Pherecyd. Fr. 40; Oharax Perg. 
ap. Steph. Byz. s. voc, Myvirros ; Apol- 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



271 



mentioned more than once in Scripture,* is no guess or myth, 
but an established fact ; and to this Ethiopia it appears that 
both early Babylon and the neighbouring countries of Susiana 
and Southern Arabia belonged. 

The " Toldoth Beni Noah," therefore, instead of proving in- 
correct on the two points where its accuracy has been most 
recently challenged, is found in regard to them singularly to 
accord with the latest results of philological and ethnological 
research. t Indeed that document, which has been well called 
" the most authentic record that we possess for the affiliation of 
races," J is continually receiving fresh illustration and confirma- 
tion from the progress of modern discovery, and is probably 
destined to become, as time goes on, a continually stronger evi- 
dence of the historic accuracy of Genesis. 

IV. Of all the attempts made to invalidate the histori- 
cal character of the Pentateuch, the boldest is that which, 
starting from an observation of the resemblance of the names 
given in the two genealogies of the Sethites and the Cainites,§ 
proceeds to argue that they are really representations of one 
and the same list, with variations in the order and in the ortho- 
graphy, which variations destroy the authority of both, and 
show that nothing has come down to us but a document founded 
on " a misunderstanding of the earliest records." || " Not having 
one tradition, but two," we have, it is argued, in reality, " no 
historical account." We may, therefore* suppose that neither 
list contains any actual genealogy at all. We may view the 
names as ideal or mythical, significative of notions, nations, or 
epochs ; and we may then construct a history of the Old World 
according to our fancy, with very little check indeed upon our 
faculty of invention. 

Now the facts of the case are simply, that in the two genea- 
logies, which differ both at the beginning and at the end, six 
consecutive names occur, of which two are identical, while the 
remaining four have more or less of resemblance. These names 



lodor. ii. 1, § 4 ; Eupolemus ap. Alex. 
PolyMst Fr. 3; Johann. Antiochen. 
Fr. 6, § 15. 

* Gen. ii. 13 ; Ezek. xxxviii. 5. 

f In connexion with this subject 
Mr. E. S. Poole's articles on ' The Ca- 
naanites' and 'Cush' in Dr. Smith's 



' Biblical Dictionary ' are recommended 
to the reader's attention. 

X Sir H. Kawlinson in the ' Journal 
of the Asiatic Society,' vol. xv. p. 230. 

§ Gen. iv. 17-22 ; Gen. v. 3-32. 

|| « Egypt's Place,' vol. iv. p. 395. 



272 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



are Cain, Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methusael, and Lamecli in the 
one list; Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, and 
Lamech in the other. The names Enoch and Lamech (it will 
be seen) occur in both lists ; of the rest, Cain resembles Cainan ; 
Irad, Jared ; Mehujael, Mahalaleel ; and Methusael, Methu- 
selah. The resemblance, however, is in the Hebrew scarcely so 
great as in the Authorized Version. Irad differs from Jared by 
an initial letter of peculiar importance, the Hebrew am Q?), 
which had a strong guttural sound, and is rarely lost.* Maha- 
laleel differs from Mehujael by one entire element out of the 
two which make it up ; it is really no nearer to Mehujael than 
Theodosius to Theophilus, or Jeroboam to Jerubbaal. In Methu- 
sael, and Methuselah, again, the concluding element is different, 
there being probably no connection between the sael or shad of 
the one and the selah or shelach of the other. Further, there is 
a considerable difference in the order which the names hold in 
the two lists ; and of this difference no account has been even 
attempted. The second name in the Cainite list is the fourth 
in the list of the Sethites ; and conversely the fourth among the 
Cainites is a name resembling the second name among the 
Sethites. Hence, if we allow the names to correspond, we must 
say that the two lists agree in no single relationship, except 
only that of the last pair. Cain is the son of Adam and father 
of Enoch ; but Cainan is the son of Enos and father of Mahala- 
leel. Enoch the Cainite is the son of Cain and father of Irad ; 
but Enoch the Sethite is the son of Jared and father of Methu- 
selah. Irad is son of Enoch and father of Mehujael ; but Jared 
is son of Mahalaleel and father of Enoch. Finally, Methusael 
is son of Mehujael, but Methuselah of Enoch ; and Lamech the 
Sethite is father of Noah, but Lamech the Cainite, of Jabal, 
Jubal, and Tubal-Cain. Altogether, while the amount of re- 
semblance in the two lists is certainly remarkable, the amount 
of diversity is such as very clearly to distinguish them from one 
another. Where confusion was most likely to ensue — that is to 
say, in the cases of the two identical names of Enoch and La- 
mech — the narrative in one or the other list is fuller and more 



* In the LXX. the ain is represented 
by the Greek y. There the two names 
scarcely retain any resemblance at all, 
being respectively Iared ('IapeS) and 



Ga'idad (TaXddS). The copies used by 
the LXX. evidently had *"J in the place 
of-i. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



273 



detailed than usual, apparently for the very purpose of guarding 
ao-ainst the mistake of identification. All, therefore, that can 
fairly be concluded is, that in the two families of the Sethites 
and the Cainites, as in the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah,* 
similar appellations, and to some extent the same appellations, 
prevailed. It would seem that at first men were slow to invent 
new names, and either used the old names over again or modified 
them slightly. Thus we have Unos and Enoch, Adam and Adah J 
Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Gom, where no one suggests an identi- 
fication. Probably names were considered of great importance, 
and the experiment of an entirely new name was not readily 
made. 

The mythical character of this same portion of the Biblical 
history has been further based upon certain supposed etymolo- 
gies. Seth, we are informed, represents, not a man, but God 
Himself, since Set or Sutekh was an old Oriental root for God, 
and Set or Suti continued to be an Egyptian deity. % Enos is 
the same as Adam, since in Aramaic it means " man," as Adam 
does in Hebrew. § Neither are real names of persons, but only 
ideal appellations for the first founder of our race. Enoch, 
" the seer of God," represents a religious period intervening be- 
tween the time of the marauder Cain, and that of the agricul- 
tural builder of cities Irad. || At the same time he is " the solar 
year," since the number of years which he is said to have lived 
coincides exactly with the number of days in that division of 
time.1l Cain and Irad are the respective types of the nomadic 
shepherd races and the agricultural dwellers in towns. The 
other patriarchs also represent epochs ; and ISTahor, the grand- 
father of Abraham, is the first real Biblical man.** 

It is clear that all history whatsoever may be made to evapo- 
rate under such treatment as this. If we may guess at etymo- 
logies, and then at once assume our guesses to be coincident 
with truth ; if we may regard all significant names as mythic, 
and the personages to whom they are assigned as ideal, there is 
no portion of the world's annals which may not with a very little 



* Taking the five consecutive and 
contemporary monarchs of these two 
kingdoms, who follow upon Ahab and 
Jehoshaphat, we find three names com- 
mon to the two lists. 

f The resemblance is less in the He- 



brew, but still it is real. 

% Bunsen, ' Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 208. 
§ Ibid. p. 385. 
|| Ibid. p. 390. 
% Ibid. p. 389. 
** Ibid. p. 409. 



T 



274 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



ingenuity be transferred to the region of myth. A witty writer 
noted some ten years since the certainty that, if such views 
prevailed, a famous passage from the ecclesiastical history of 
our own time would be relegated by posterity to that shadowy 
region ; for how could it be doubted that such names as New- 
man, Wiseman, Masterman, Philpotts, Wilde, were "fictitious 
appellations invented by an allegorist, either to set forth 
certain qualities or attributes of certain persons whose true 
names were concealed, or to embody certain tendencies of the 
times, or represent certain party characteristics ?" * Similarly 
it might be argued that Athenian history, from Draco to 
Pericles, is mythical — that Draco was intended to represent the 
bloody and cruel spirit of the old aristocracy, Cylon their 
crooked courses, Solon the first establishment of a sole authority 
(for it would seem to be thought allowable to draw a derivation 
from a cognate dialect), Pisistratus the usurpation in which a 
chief persuaded an army to help him, Hippias, Hipparchus, and 
Thessalus, the time when, with the aid of Thessaly, the cavalry 
service was first fully organised, Isagoras the establishment of 
democracy, Clisthenes the triumph of physical strength, Themi- 
stocles the ascendancy of law, Aristides the completion of the best 
form of government, Pericles the age when Athens attained her 
full glory. Where names are significant, and their etymology 
is accurately known, it is generally easy to bend them into 
agreement even with the actual history of the time. How much 
more easy must it be, when their signification is unknown, to 
affix a meaning on plausible grounds which shall square with 
our historical fancies ! 

But, it is said, the histories of all other nations run up into 
myth. Can the Hebrews be a solitary exception? This is 
simply to ask : Can there be direct revelation at all ; or, in 
other words, can God or a Divine messenger speak to man face 
to face, as the prophets declare they were spoken to ? If He 
can, there is certainly nothing to prevent the subject matter of 
His revelation from being historical. And the beginnings of 
human history might in this way be as well communicated as 
any other facts, past, present, or future. ISTor is it at all impos- 



* ' Eclipse of Faith,' pp. 347, 348. 
The significance of two of the names 
belonging to this passage of our his- 
tory gave occasion to the following 



couplet, written by a living scholar at 
the time of the "Papal Aggression " :— 

"Cum Sapiente Pius nostras juravit in aras: 
Impius beu Sapiens insipiensque Pius !" 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



275 



sible that the true history may have been handed down in one 
line by an undefiled tradition, while in all other lines it was 
corrupted. The laws which govern human action are general, 
not universal ; and an exception is so much a matter of course 
that some regard it as " proving the rule." It is unphilosophical 
to assume, merely on the analogy of other nations, that the 
Hebrew " beginnings " are mythic. At the least, they ought 
first to be formally compared with the "beginnings" of those 
other nations, and only pronounced mythic if found to resemble 
them. Such a comparison has not been made at all fully as 
yet ; and, if it were made, would exhibit the most striking- 
diversity.* The "beginnings" of other races have an air of 
extravagance about them, a tone of quaintness and grotesque- 
ness utterly alien from the " Origines " of the Hebrews. In the 
former gods have their heads cut off, or devour their children, 
or undergo marvellous transformations, or marry their mothers, 
or are fished up out of the sea by fishermen, or are otherwise 
set before us in ludicrous aspects, which take away all solemnity 
and seriousness from the narrative. How different from this is 
the simple and awful grandeur of Genesis ! What a deep and 
solemn earnestness greets us in the very first words ! What 
sustained seriousness do we find throughout ! How evident that 
we are on holy ground, in the hands of a writer who does not 
dare to jest or sport with things divine, who is no fanciful 
allegorizer, weaving quaint fables to delight us as he instructs, 
but one who speaks as in the presence of God, with a simple 
reverent solemnity, incompatible with any conscious departure 
from literal truth ! It is impossible to illustrate this subject to 
any large extent here ; but the reader may gain, from the two 
passages placed below in parallel columns, a tolerably fair 
notion of the extent to which the " Origines " of other nations 
differ in tone from Genesis. 



Account of the Creation from 
Berosus.| 

" In the beginning all was darkness 
and water, and therein were generated 
monstrous animals of strange and pe- 



ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION FROM 

Genesis. J 

" In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth. And the earth 
was without form and void ; and dark- 



* M. Bunsen makes a very incom- 
plete comparison in the fourth volume 
of his ' Egypt ' (pp. 364-375). He cannot, 
however, even proceed so far as he has 
gone without being struck with the di- 



versity here spoken of. (See p. 374.) 

t Ap. Syncell. ' Chronograph.' vol. i. 
p. 53 ; compare Euseb. ' Chron. Can.' 
i. 2 ; pp. 11, 12, ed. Mai. 

+ Gen. i. 1-8 ; 24-27 ; ii. 7. 

T 2 



276 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



euliar forms. There were men with 
two wings, and others even with four, 
and with two faces : and others with 
two heads, a man's and a woman's, on : 
one body : and there were men with 
the heads and the horns of goats, and 
men with hoofs like horses, and some 
with the upper parts of a man joined 
to the lower parts of a horse, like 
centaurs ; and there were bulls with 
human heads, dogs with four bodies 
and with fishes' tails, men and horses 
with dogs' heads, &c. &c. A woman 
ruled them all, by name Omorka, 
which is the same as ' the sea.' 



ness was upon the face of the deep, 
And the Spirit of God moved upon 
the face of the waters. 



"And Belus appeared, and split 
the woman in twain ; and of the one 
half of her he made the heaven, and 
of the other half the earth ; and the 
beasts that were in her he caused to 
perish. And he split the darkness, 
and divided the heaven and the earth 
asunder, and put the world in order ; 
and the animals that could not bear 
the light perished. 



" Belus, upon this, seeing that the 
earth was desolate, yet teeming with 
productive power, commanded one of 
the gods to cut off his head, and to 
mix the blood, which flowed forth, 
with earth, and form men therewith, 
and beasts that could bear the light. 
So man was made, and was intelligent, 
being a partaker of the Divine wis- 
dom." 



" And God said, Let there be light : 
and there was light. And God saw 
the light that it was good ; and God 
divided the light from the darkness. 
And God called the light Day ; and 
the darkness he called Mght. And 
the evening and the morning were the 
first day. 

" And God said, Let there be a fir- 
mament in the midst of the waters ; 
and let it divide the waters from the 
waters. And God made the firma- 
ment, and divided the waters which 
were under the firmament from the 
waters which were above the firma- 
ment; and it was so. And God called 
the firmament Heaven. And the even- 
ing and the morning were the second 
day. 

" And God said, Let the earth bring 
forth the living creature after his kind, 
cattle and creeping thing and beast 
of the earth after his kind ; and it was 
so. And God made the beast of the 
earth after his kind, and cattle after 
their kind, and everything that creep- 
eth upon the earth after his kind : and 
God saw that it was good. 

" And God said, Let us make man 
in our image, after our likeness ; and 
let them have dominion over the fish 
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, 
and over the cattle, and over all the 
earth, and over every creeping thing 
that creepeth upon the earth. So God 
created man in his own image ; in the 
image of God created he him ; male 
and female created he them. 

" And the Lord God formed man 
of the dust of the ground, and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life. 
And man became a living soul." 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



277 



Y. The longevity of the Patriarchs appears to modern 
critics " at variance with all the laws of human and animal 
organism," and therefore " as contrary to common sense as the 
notion of there being any real chronology in astronomical 
cycles of hundreds of thousands of years." * Men, we are told, 
cannot ever have lived more than 150, or, at the most, 200 
years ; and a document which assigns them lives of 300, 600, 
800, and even 900 years, must be unhistorical, and is either, in 
respect of its numbers, worthless, or to be explained in some 
not very obvious way. This argument is supposed to be drawn 
from physiology, another of the "infallible sciences," which are 
held to lay down laws, not only for our practical guidance at 
the present day, but for our intellectual belief as to the occur- 
rences of all past ages. In truth, however, the science of phy- 
siology has not spoken on the point before us. Its problem has 
been, not what length of time it is possible for man ever to 
have lived, but how long it is possible for him now to live 
under the present circumstances of the earth, and in the present 
known condition of human bodies. And even this question it 
can only answer empirically. It finds the body to be a machine 
which wears out by use ; but it falls to discover any definite 
rate at which the process of wearing out must proceed. In 
this difficulty, comparative physiology does not help it, for the 
law of longevity in the brute creation is capricious in the 
extreme. All the proposed standards of measurement — the 
period of gestation, the time occupied in growth, the size of the 
full-grown body — when applied to species severally, fail in 
certain instances. Physiology then can only say : These human 
bodies are mortal ; death is inevitable ; and, so far as modern 
testimony goes, men do not seem now able to resist the ten- 
dency to decay beyond the term of 150, or at the utmost 200 
years. But the possible duration of life, when the species was 
but recently created, and had its vigour unimpaired by the taint 
of hereditary disease, is beyond the cognizance of physiological 
science, which, by the mouth of its most celebrated professors, 
declines to pronounce a positive judgment. The great Haller, 



* Bimsen, 'Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 391; 
compare Winer, ' Realworterbuch,' vol. 
ii. p. 207 ; Bauer, * Hebr. Mythologie,' 



vol. i. p. 197 ; Bredow, 'Untersucliungen,' 
vol. i. p. 1, &c. 



278 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



when led to speak on the subject, declared the problem one- 
which could not be solved, on account of the absence of suffi- 
cient data,* while Buffon accepted the Scriptural account, and 
thought he could see physical reasons why life should in the 
early ages have been so greatly extended, t 

It cannot, therefore, be said with truth that the longevity of 
the Patriarchs is " at variance with all "—or indeed with any — 
"of the laws of human and animal organism." We do not 
know on what longevity depends ; we could not possibly tell d 
priori whether man, or any other animal, would live one, ten, 
twenty, fifty, a hundred, or a thousand years. The whole ques- 
tion is one of fact, and so of evidence. Men now do not, except 
in very rare instances, exceed 100 years. Was this always so, 
or was it once different ? The Bible answers this question for 
us very clearly and decidedly, showing us that human life gra- 
dually declined, beginning with a term little short of a millen- 
nium, and by degrees contracting, till, in Moses' time, it had 
reached (apparently) its present limits — the days of man's age 
having become then " threescore years and ten," and only a 
few, "by reason of strength," reaching to fourscore years. f Does 
other historical testimony really run counter to this, and render 
it even hard to believe? or is it not the fact that all the 
evidence we have is in accordance with the Scriptural narrative, 
and strongly confirmatory of the statement that in the early 
ages human life was prolonged very much beyond its present 
term ? 

In the Hindoo accounts there are four ages of the world. In 
the first, man was free from diseases, and attained to the age of 
400 years ; in the second the term of Kfe was reduced to 300 
years ; in the third it became 200 ; and in the fourth 100. 
The Babylonian traditions gave to then early monarchs reigns 
of between two and three thousand years. The Greeks told of 
a time when men were children till they reached a hundred. § 
Pliny mentions a number of authors, according to whom men 
had lived 300, 500, 600, and 800 years. || Josephus relates that 



* " Problema ob paucitatem datorum 
insolubile." (' Element. Physiolog.' viii. 
§21.) 

f 'Histoire Naturelle de l'Homme,' 
(Euvres, vol. iv. pp. 358-361. 



% Ps. xc. 10. The title of this psaka 
is "a prayer of Moses, the man of God." 
§ Hesiod, 'Op. et Dies,' 130, 131. 
|| 'Hist. Nat,' vii. 48. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



279 



the Egyptian, Phoenician, Babylonian, and Grecian historians 
united in declaring that there had been cases of persons living 
nearly 1000 years.* It seems to be quite certain that a very 
wide-spread tradition existed in the ancient world, to the effect 
that the term of human life had been greatly abbreviated since 
man's first appearance upon the earth. 

VI. The duration of the sojourn in Egypt, whether taken as 
430 years, according to the apparent meaning of Ex. xii. 40, 41, 
or as 215 years, according to the traditional explanation of that 
passage, is thought to be unhistorical because of the impossibi- 
lity (as it is said) of a family of seventy persons having, even in 
the longer of the two periods, multiplied into two millions of 
souls. So strongly is this difficulty felt, that for a theologian 
not to perceive its force, is regarded as " one of the most melan- 
choly signs of the times," reducing modern exegesis to a level 
with the absurdities of Kabbinical comment. f The chronology, 
it is argued, must of necessity require a very considerable ex- 
pansion ; and this it is proposed to give by substituting for the 
430 years of Moses and St. Paul,* 1400, or (more exactly) 1427 
years (!) as the real length of the interval between the going- 
down of Jacob into Egypt and the Exodus under Moses. § 
But it is more easy to make a vague and general charge of ab- 
surdity against an adversary than to point out in what the 
absurdity with which he is taxed consists. || No one asserts it to 
be naturally probable that such a company as went down with 
Jacob into Egypt would in 215, or even in 430 years, have be- 
come a nation possessing 600,000 fighting men. Orthodox com- 
mentators simply say that such an increase of numbers was 
possible even in the shortest of these terms. They note that 
Jacob brought into Egypt fifty-one grandsons, and that if, under 
the special blessing of God so repeatedly promised to Abra- 



* 'Ant, Jud.' i. 3. 

f Bunsen, ' Egypt,' vol. i. p. 179. 

t Gal. iii. 17. 

§ Bunsen, ' Egypt,' vol. iv. pp. 492, 
493. 

II When M. Bunsen condescends to 
particularize, he falls himself into a re- 
markable error. Baumgarten had ob- 
served that, " if we deduct from the 70 
souls who came into Egypt 14, viz. 
Jacob, his 12 sons, and Dinah, there re- 



main 56 pah* who produced children." 
M. Bunsen says this reminds him of 
Falstaff 's mode of reckoning. But the 
reckoning is perfectly correct, since the 
" 56 pair" who remain consist of the 56 
male grandchildren and great-grand- 
children of Jacob (who, together with the 
14 deducted, make up the 70 souls), and 
their ivives, who were additional to the 
70. (See Gen. xlvi. 8-27.) 



280 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



ham,* his male descendants had continued to increase at the 
same rate, they would long within the specified period have 
reached the required number. In point of fact, they would in 
the fifth generation have exceeded 850,000, and in the sixth 
have amounted to six millions. f If Grod can bless with increase, 
if fecundity and life are His gifts, He might, by making every 
marriage fruitful and every child grow up, raise, even with 
greater rapidity than the record declares to have been done, a 
family into a nation. At the same time, as we are bound not to 
exaggerate the Divine interference with the ordinary course of 
nature beyond what is actually stated or implied in Scripture, it 
ought to be borne in mind that we have no need to suppose the 
600,000 fighting men who quitted Egypt, though they are all 
called Israelites, to have been all descendants of Jacob. The 
members of the Patriarch's family came down into Egypt with 
their households.^ What the size of patriarchal households was, 
we may gather from that of Abraham, whose " trained ser- 
vants born in his house " amounted to 318. § Nor was this an 
exceptional case. Esau met Jacob on his return from Padan- 
aram with 400 men, who were probably his servants, || and 
Jacob at the same meeting had such a number that he could 
divide them into two "bands," or "armies" (JltonD).^ It is 
not unlikely that the whole company which entered Egypt with 
Jacob amounted to above a thousand souls.** As all were cir- 
cumcised,']' t a ll would doubtless be considered Israelites; and 
their descendants would be reckoned to the tribes of their 
masters. Again, we must remember that polygamy prevailed 
among the Hebrews ; and that though polygamy, if a nation 
lives by itself, is not favourable to rapid increase, yet, if foreign 
wives can be obtained in any number, JJ it is an institution by 
means of which population may be greatly augmented. A recent 
Shah of Persia is said to have left at his death nearly three 



* Gen. xii. 2 ; xiii. 16 ; xvii. 4-6 ; 
xxii. 17. 

f The average increase of the males 
in the two generations had been more 
than sevenfold each generation. A se- 
venfold increase would have given 
857,157 males in the fifth generation, 
and 6,000,099 in the sixth. 

X Gen. xlv. 18 ; Ex. i. 1. 

§ Gen. xiv. 14. 



11 Gen. xxxii. 6. 
. % Gen. xxxii. 7. 

** Kurtz thinks they must have con- 
sisted of "several thousands." ('Hist, 
of Old Covenant/ vol. ii. p. 149, E. T.) 

ft Gen. xvii. 12. 

XX The Israelites could probably have 
obtained wives from the lower castes of 
the Egyptians ; also from the Midianites 
(Ex. ii. 21), the Libyans, and others. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



281 



thousand descendants ; and it is a well-known fact that one of 
his sons had a body-guard of sixty grown men, who all called 
him father.* Egypt, moreover, was a country where both men and 
animals are said to have been remarkably prolific ;-f* where, there- 
fore, natural law would have tended in the same direction as the 
special action of Divine Providence at this time. These consi- 
derations do not indeed reduce the narrative within the category 
of ordinary occurrences ; but they diminish considerably from 
its extraordinariness. They show that at any rate there is no 
need to extend the period of the sojourn beyond the 430 years 
of the Hebrew text, unless we seek to deprive the increase of 
that special and exceptional character which is markedly 
assigned to it by the sacred historian.^ 

It is further maintained, that, even apart from the entire 
question of the rapid increase of the Israelites in Egypt, the 
Biblical number, 430, cannot be historical, because it is the 
exact double of the period immediately preceding it, that, namely, 
between Abraham's entrance into Canaan and Jacob's journey 
into Egypt. It is " repugnant," we are told, " to any sound 
critical -view," to believe the one period to have really been 
exactly the double of the other. § The nature and ground of the 
repugnancy are not stated ; but apparently the principle 
assumed must be, that numerical coincidences are in no case 
historical, and that where they occur we are justified in assuming 
that one or other of the two numbers is purely artificial — the in- 
vention of a writer not honest enough to admit his ignorance. 
But is this principle really sound ? Will there be no numerical 
coincidences in historical chronology? What, then, shall we 
say to the ready acceptance by the writer who takes this view, 
of a statement made by Manetho, that during a certain period 
of 151 years there reigned in different parts of Egypt two 
contemporary dynasties consisting of exactly forty-eight kings 
each ? Yet this is exhibited as part of a " clear historical pic- 



* Sir H. Bawlinson in the writer's 
' Herodotus,' vol. i. p. 277. 

t Aristot. ' Hist. An.' vii. 4 ; Strab. 
xv. 1, § 22 ; Plin. 4 H. N.' vii. 3 ; Senec. 
' Qusest. Nat.' iii. 25 ; Columell. ' de Ke 
Bust.' iii. 8. 

X 44 And the children of Israel were 
fruitful, and increased abundantly, and 
multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; 



and the land was filled with them. " (Ex. 
i. 7.) " But the more they afflicted them 
the more they multiplied and grew ; and 
they (i. e. the Egyptians) were grieved 
because of the people of Israel." (Ib. 
verse 12 ; compare also verse 20.) 

§ Bunsen, 4 Egypt's Place,' vol. i. p. 
173. 



282 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



ture " in the very same work which proclaims the belief in a less 
exact coincidence repugnant to all sound criticism.* The truth 
is, that a certain number of these coincidences will be presented 
by the historical chronology of any nation. For instance, from 
the commencement of the Persian to the end of the Pelopon- 
nesian war — a very marked period of Grecian history — was 
eighty-six years ; and from the end of the Peloponnesian war to 
the termination of the struggle between Sparta and Thebes — 
the next marked period — was exactly half the time, or forty- 
three years. At Koine, from the beginning of the disturbances 
caused by the Gracchi to the first civil war between Sylla and 
Marius was forty-four years, and from the breaking out of this 
war to the death of Julius Caesar was likewise forty-four years. 
(It was also exactly forty-four years from the death of Julius 
Caesar to the reputed year of the birth of Christ.) In the Mo- 
hammedan Caliphate the family of Mohammed occupied the 
throne from B.C. 632 to B.C. 661, or (inclusively) thirty years ; 
and the succeeding dynasty of the Ommiades held it from B.C. 
660 to B.C. 750, or just ninety years, thrice the time of their 
predecessors. Again, in the portion of Jewish history with re- 
spect to which there is no dispute, the length of the period of 
independence intervening between the Syrian and the Konian 
servitudes is exactly equal to that of the servitude under Koine, 
which began with Antipater and terminated with the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem by Titus. f But it is needless to multiply in- 
stances. Common sense assures us that such accidental coinci- 
dences must occasionally take place ; and no chronology claim- 
ing to be historical is to be rejected on account of them, unless 
they are of more frequent occurrence in it than can be accounted 
for by the doctrine of chances. It is not pretended that they 
are frequent in the Pentateuch ; nor indeed in the whole of the 
five books of Moses is there any other instance of a recurring 
number that has given rise to any suspicion. 

18. It appears, then, from this whole review, that there is 
nothing in the history of the world, so far as it is yet known, that 
forms even a serious objection to the authenticity of the Penta- 
teuch. Were we bound down to the numbers of the Hebrew text in 



* Bunsen, 'Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 510. 
f Judas Maccabseus revolted b.c. 166. 
Antipater was made Procurator of Judsea 



by Julius Csesar in B.C. 48. Jerusalem was 
destroyed a.d. 70. But 166 - 48 = 118, 
and 48 + 70 = 118. 



Essay VI.] 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



283 



regard to the period between the Flood and Abraham, we should, 
indeed, find ourselves in a difficulty. Three hundred and seventy 
years would certainly not seem to be sufficient time for the 
peopling of the world, to the extent to which it appears to have 
been peopled in the days of Abraham, and for the formation of 
powerful and settled monarchies in Babylonia and Egypt. But 
the adoption of the Septuagint numbers for this period, which 
are on every ground preferable, brings the chronology into har- 
mony at once with the condition of the world as shown to us in 
the account given in Scripture of the times of Abraham, and 
with the results obtainable from the study, in a sober spirit, of 
profane history. A thousand years is ample time for the occu- 
pation of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt, by a considerable 
population, for the formation of governments, the erection even 
of such buildings as the Pyramids, the advance of the arts 
generally to the condition found to exist in Egypt under the 
eighteenth dynasty, and for almost any amount of subdivision 
and variety in languages. More time does not seem to be in 
any sense needed by the facts of history hitherto known to us. 
The world, generally, is in a primitive and simple condition at 
the time of the call of Abraham. Men are still chiefly nomades. 
Population seems sparse ; for Abraham and Lot find plenty of 
vacant land in Palestine, and the descendants of Abraham ex- 
perience no difficulty in overspreading several countries. Settled 
kingdoms appear nowhere, except in Egypt and in Babylonia ; 
and there the governments are of the simplest form. Art in Baby- 
lonia is in a poor and low condition, the implements used being 
chiefly of stone and flint. Yet Babylon is much superior to her 
neighbours, holds Assyria in subjection, and claims the second 
place in the history of the world. Her historical beginnings 
reach back, at the utmost, to B.C. 2458, while those of Egypt 
are probably but a very little earlier. All other nations acknow- 
ledge themselves younger than these two, and have no traditions 
even of then- existence much before B.C. 2000. The idea that 
the Biblical chronology is too narrow, that it cramps history, 
and needs to be set aside in favour of a scheme which puts 
10,000 years between the Deluge and the birth of Christ, is not 
one which has grown upon men gradually through the general 
tenor of their inquiries into the antiquities of different nations. 
It is merely the dream of a single historical enthusiast, who, 



284 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VI. 



devoting himself to the history of one country, and pinning his 
faith on one author — whom after all he exaggerates and mis- 
represents — has come to imagine that the additional time is 
required by the history of his favourite, and has then forced and 
strained the histories of other countries, with which he has no 
special acquaintance, into a distant agreement with the chrono- 
logical scheme formed upon the supposed necessities of a 
single kingdom and people. As for the further requirement 
of another 10,000 years between the Deluge and the creation of 
man, it rests upon linguistic phantasies of the most purely 
speculative character. The remainder of the historical objec- 
tions to the authenticity of the Pentateuch, though sometimes 
ingenious, have in them nothing to alarm us. Profane history 
is decidedly favourable to a Deluge extending to all races of 
men, and to the greater longevity of man in the earlier ages. 
Ethnological research tends continually more and more to con- 
firm, instead of shaking, the account given of the affiliation of 
nations in the tenth chapter of Genesis. The more accurately 
old myths are examined, the more evident does it become that 
their tone and spirit are wholly different from the tone and spirit 
of Scripture. The Pentateuch has the air and manner of history ; 
the Jews have always regarded it in that light ; and modern 
historical and geographical inquiries, whenever they afford an 
opportunity of testing the accuracy of the narrative, are found 
to bear witness to its truth. Whatever may be the scientific 
difficulties in the way of a literal reception of some portions, 
historical difficulties of any real magnitude there are none. 
Internally, the narrative is consistent with itself ; externally, it 
is supported by all that has any claim to be considered sober 
earnest in the histories of other nations. The Christian world, 
which has reposed upon it for nearly 2000 years, as an authentic 
record of the earliest ages, is justified, by all the results of 
modern historical research, in still continuing its confident 
trust. There is really not a pretence for saying that recent 
discoveries in the field of history, monumental or other, have 
made the acceptance of the Mosaic narrative in its plain and 
literal sense any more difficult now than in the days of Bossuet 
or Stillingfleet. 



ESSAY VII. 
INSPIRATION. 



CONTENTS OF ESSAY VII. 



1. Introduction — All spiritual en- 

lightenment derived from the Di- 
vine Spirit ; but is all derived in 
the same way ? 

2. A Divine and a human element in 

all inspiration— How co-existing ? 

3. History of the question — Jewish 

opinions — Patristic opinions. 

4. No argument against a high view 

to be deduced from the patristic 
belief in the inspiration of others 
besides the Apostles. 

5. Middle ages — Mysticism. 

6. The Keformation favourable to a 

very high esteem of Holy Scrip- 
ture, but favourable also to free- 
dom of thought. 

7. Tendency of thought in Germany 

in the 18th century. 

8. Deism passed from England, through 

France, to Germany — Doctrine of 
the English Deists. 

9. Causes leading to the controversy 

on inspiration in the present day. 

10. English writers of the present cen- 

tury and their theories. 

11. Christian Evidences in a measure 

independent of theories of inspi- 
ration. 

12. Definite theories not desirable. 

13. Objections to inspiration closely 

connected with objections to mi- 
racles. 

14. Origin of doubts about miracles. 

15. Miracles not improbable, if there be 

a spiritual world connected more 
or less closely with the physical 
world, and a "Personal Kuler of 
the world. 



16. If miracles ever should occur, we 

should most naturally expect them 
to be connected witli some special 
communication of God's will to 
man. 

17. The common course taken by philo- 

sophical scepticism. 

18. As to inspiration : we have first cer- 

tain phenomena in the Bible, prov- 
ing the existence of a human ele- 
ment — The manifestation of that 
human element most valuable in 
the matter of evidence — We have 
next certain phenomena manifest- 
ing a Divine element. — (a.) Pro- 
phecy — Question as to the exist- 
ence of true predictive prophecy 
in the Old Testament — Objection 
— Nihil in scripto quod non prius 
in Scriptore — Objection replied 
to — Cases of Balaam and Caia- 
phas. — (6.) Types. 

19. How far all this proves the special 

inspiration of the Old Testament 
— Coleridge's view considered. 

20. Argument a fortiori for the inspira- 

tion of the New Testament — Mr. 
Maurice's question replied to. 

21. Mr. Morell's theory of the intuitional 

consciousness considered. 

22. Latitude of opinion on some points 

may be allowable. 

23. The Scriptures an infallible deposi- 

tory of religious truth. 

24. Question concerning physical 

science. 

25. Conclusion — Some trials of our 

faith ought not to stagger us — 
The proper condition of mind in 
the present day. 



INSPIRATION. 



1. As in the natural world wisdom and intelligence are among 
the signs of life in an intelligent being, so in the spiritual world a 
spiritual understanding follows on the possession of spiritual life. 
As the Divine Spirit gives life, so He inspires wisdom. Indeed 
all spiritual gifts flow equally from the same Spirit. St. Paul 
says that " there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit," 
who gives to one the word of wisdom, to another the word 
of knowledge, to another faith, to another miracles and gifts of 
healing, to another prophecy, to another divers kinds of tongues, 
to another the interpretation of tongues. So he describes the 
influence of that one and the selfsame Spirit on the early disciples 
in the Church of Corinth. Are we to take this literally ? Are 
we to believe that, whilst some had spiritual wisdom and under- 
standing — and that in larger or less degrees — others were en- 
abled to work miracles, others to prophesy ; that whilst to some 
there was only the common understanding of spiritual truths and 
mysteries, such as an enlightened mind among ourselves could 
penetrate, to others there was given an infallible knowledge 
of future events or of Divine truths otherwise unknown to man ? 
Or, on the other hand, shall we think no more than this — that 
the Holy Spirit, who is the inspirer of all wisdom, by rege- 
nerating the heart, purifying the soul, exalting the affections, 
and quickening the intuitions of the mind, gives to some men 
more than to others an insight into things heavenly, and so 
enables them in all times and in all ages of the Church to 
be exponents of the Divine will? — that He reveals God and 
Christ to their inmost consciences, inspiring them with all high 
and holy thoughts, and that thus they can utter things which 
would be deep mysteries to other men, and which are, indeed, 
the oracles of God ? 

2. This is pretty much the question concerning inspiration so 
much agitated now. When we come to consider it, there can be 
no doubt but that we must admit a human and a Divine element. 
There is the mind of the Prophet or Apostle to be enlightened, 



288 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



and the Holy Spirit, the inspirer or enlightener. The question 
will be, in what manner and in what proportion these two ele- 
ments coexist. We may suppose the human mind perfectly 
passive, acting simply under a mechanical influence of the Holy 
Spirit, speaking or writing not its own thoughts or its own words, 
but only the thoughts and words of the Spirit of God. Or we 
may suppose the mind of the writer or speaker acting altogether 
freely, speaking entirely its own thoughts and words, but having 
derived from Divine communion and enlightenment a higher 
tone, having acquired a correcter judgment, and, from a deep 
spiritual insight, able to speak spiritual things such as the 
natural man receiveth not. These are the two extremes. The one 
is verbal inspiration, simple dictation, so that the lips of the 
Prophet and the pen of the Evangelist are but mechanical organs 
moved by the Spirit of God. The other is no more than an ex- 
altation of the natural faculties by the influence of the same 
Spirit, such an exaltation as we must believe all wise and holy 
men to have received, an inspiration such as that by which 
a Hooker or a Butler wrote the works which bear their names. 
There are many intermediate steps between these two, but 
no one can exceed either of these extremes and yet call him- 
self a Christian. 

3. Many causes have brought this subject into controversy at 
present. It has, however, occupied the thoughts of thoughtful 
men, and has been debated and disputed on in earlier times ; 
and a rapid glance at the history of the question may be a 
help to giving it its true place, and perhaps to finding its true 
solution. 

The reverence which the ancient Jews felt for the Jewish 
Scriptures, must have sprung from the highest theory of verbal 
inspiration. Their care to count every verse and letter in every 
book of the Old Testament, to retain every large or small letter, 
every letter above or below the line, their belief that a mystery 
lurked in every abnormal state of letter, jot, or tittle, cannot 
have resulted from any lower principle. Later Jews, like the 
Cabbalists or Maimonides, may have become Pantheists or nation- 
alists ; but the more ancient have left us the clearest proof that 
they esteemed the Scriptures as the express word of God Him- 
self. The well-known tradition amongst the Alexandrian Jews 
concerning the verbal agreement of all the LXX. translators, 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION". 



289 



though, working in seventy separate cells/ looks the same way. 
There is considerable reason to believe that the distinction 
between the different books of Scripture — the Hagiographa 
being esteemed inferior to the Prophets, and the Prophets infe- 
rior to the Law — was at least much magnified, if not wholly 
invented, by the later Jews. So far, however, as such a distinc- 
tion and such difference of estimation existed at all, so far we 
must perhaps believe that there was a notion of something like 
degrees of inspiration. 

The earlier Christian Fathers seem to have followed much the 
same course as their Jewish predecessors. Clemens Eomanus 
calls the Holy Scriptures " the true words of the Holy Ghost " 
(c. 45). No definite theory of inspiration would be likely to be 
propounded ; but the general reverence for the words of Holy 
Writ, and the deep significance believed to exist underneath the 
letter, prove the belief in inspiration to have been very strong and 
universal. Justin Martyr, and his Jewish opponent, seem fully 
agreed in their appreciation of the Old Testament. " No Scrip- 
ture can be opposed to any other Scripture" ('Dialog.' p. 289). 
Irenseus saw in our Lord's promise to His Apostles — " He that 
heareth you, heareth Me" (Luke x. 16) — an assurance of their 
infallibility in the Gospel. " After the Lord's resurrection they 
were indued with the power of the Holy Ghost, and had perfect 
knowledge of the truth. He, therefore, who despises their 
teaching despises Christ and God " (Iren. hi. 1). Still it may 
be fairly said that Irenseus, in his accounts of the composition of 
the Gospel, seems to combine a human element with the Divine. 
(See Iren. iii. 11.) 

Tertullian embraced the Montanist belief, that Divine commu- 
nications were made to man by means of a condition of trance 
or ecstasy. In this trance the prophet was supposed to lose all 
sense, like a Pythoness under the influence of the Divine afflatus 
(c. Marcion. iv. 22). This was the' highest kind of inspiration. 
Yet he seems to have thought that the Apostles were at times 
allowed to speak their own words, and not the words of God, as 
where St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 12) says, " To the rest speak I, not 
the Lord" (<De Monogam.' c. 3). 

The Alexandrian Fathers, Clement and Origen, though adopt- 
ing somewhat of the Neo-Platonic views of the soul, as receiving 
an enlightenment by communion with the Divine Logos, appear 

u 



290 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



to have held firmly the infallibility of every word of Scripture ; 
and the mystical sense which they attach to the history and the 
language of the Old Testament seems to point even to verbal in- 
spiration. (See Lumper, ' Historia Theologico-eritica,' vol. 9. c. 4. 
§ iii. art. 2.) Origen was, however, the first great Biblical 
critic : few things have tended more than Biblical criticism to 
modify the theory of verbal inspiration : and this appeared even 
in the patristic ages and among some of the most illustrious 
of the patristic writers. The critical labours of Chrysostom and 
Jerome, in the beginning of the fifth century, made them 
observe the apparent discrepancies in the accounts of the Evan- 
gelists, and other like difficulties in Holy Writ. Such observa- 
tions led to a greater appreciation of the human element in the 
composition of Scripture. St. Chrysostom could see that some 
slight variations in the different narratives of the same event 
were no cause for anxiety or unbelief, but rather a proof that the 
Evangelists were independent witnesses. And St. J erome could 
discern in the New Testament writers a dialect inferior to the 
purest Greek, and even at times a mixture of human passion in 
the language of the Aj)ostles.* All this, however, these Fathers 
clearly held to be subjected and subordinate to the general 
Divine influence of the guiding and overruling Spirit. 

4. No argument against a high doctrine of inspiration, as held 
by the Fathers, can be fairly deduced from the fact that they 
were disposed to admit the inspiration of other writings besides 
the Canonical Scriptures. Many of them knew the Old Testa- 
ment only in the Greek translation, and were inclined to pay the 
same reverence to that which, may have been due only to the 
Hebrew original. The writings of Clement and Hermas were at 
first received as canonical, though more careful inquiry ex- 
cluded them from the Canon of the New Testament. This may 
be an argument against the critical accuracy of the Fathers, but 
is none against their belief in the inspiration of the Bible. Nor, 
again, are we warranted in thinking that they confounded natu- 
ral enlightenment with spiritual inspiration, because some of 
them speak as if prophetic powers and supernatural illumination 
were vouchsafed to others besides the Apostles of Christ. ' There 
can be no question that the earlier Fathers believed in the con- 



* Neander, ' History of Doctrines/ i. 280. (Bonn.) 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION. 



291 



tinuation of the miraculous powers of the Apostolic age down to 
their own times, and hence they looked themselves for a spe- 
cial illumination from the Holy Ghost. Yet, even so, they 
distinguished carefully between the gift of infallibility in things 
spiritual vouchsafed to the writers of the New Testament, and 
the gift of Divine illumination to themselves and their own 
contemporaries.* 

5. The Church of the middle ages had, for the most part, a 
belief similar to that of the earlier Fathers. Visions, and 
dreams, and sensible illuminations were still expected. Miracu- 
lous powers and Divine inspiration were still believed to reside 
in the Church ; but the Scriptures were not the less esteemed as 
specially, and in a sense distinct and peculiar, the lively oracles 
of God. Still the bold speculations of Abelard, in the twelfth 
century, reached the doctrine of inspiration as well as other 
deep questions of theology. The Prophets, as he taught, had 
sometimes the gift of prophecy and sometimes spoke from their 
own minds. The Apostles too were liable to error, as St. Peter 
on the question of circumcision, who was reproved by St. PauLf 
Abelard's tendency was rationalistic. But here a very important 
phenomenon, not confined to the middle ages, but very ap- 
parent then, deserves our careful attention. In all ages of the 
Church we find frequent tendencies to mysticism. The desire 
for a kind of ecstatic vision of things Divine, of abstraction from 
the external world, and an absorbed contemplation of the Deity, 
is natural to enthusiastic temperaments, and is not uncommon in 
times of dogmatic controversy. The state so sought after seems 
to offer a refuge from the strife of tongues, from the din and 
noise and uncharitableness of the world and the Church without. 
Those who have taken this line, indulged in this spirit, have, of 
course, a firm belief in the communion of the Christian soul with 
the Spirit of God, and look for constant revelations from the 



* Ignatius claims for himself that he 
knew the doctrines which he taught, 
not from man, but from the testimony 
of the Spirit ('ad Philadelph.' 7) ; but 
then he clearly distinguishes between 
himself and the Apostles. " I do not 
enjoin you as Peter and Paul ; they 
were Apostles, I a condemned man." 
('ad Eph.' 15.) And Tertullian, who 
took a peculiarly high view of the 
Divine illumination of the true Chris- 



tian, says distinctly that " all the faith- 
ful have the Spirit of God, but all are 
not Apostles." "The Apostles have 
the Holy Spirit in a peculiar sense." 
('De Exhortatione Castitatis,' 4.) See 
Westcott, 'Introd. to the Gospels,' pp. 
386, 400. 

f ' Sic et Non.' Ed. Hencke, p. 10. 
See Neander, 'Hist, of Doctrine,' vol. ii. 
p. 492. 

u 2 



292 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



Divine to the human intelligence. The mystic is transported 
out of self, and aims at frequent supernatural communion with 
God. To such a person the condition of the devout soul is 
a condition of constant inspiration. It is very true that the 
Holy Spirit is ever present with the Church, ever dwells in the 
souls of Christians, is our teacher and guide in all things, is 
ever ready to enlighten our understandings, as well as to convert 
our hearts. But this truth of Scripture, pressed to the extent of 
mysticism, breaks down the boundary between the inspiration of 
Prophets or Apostles, and the enlightenment of the Christian 
soul. The genuine mystic is himself in a state of the highest 
inspiration. The intuitions of his spirit enable him to see things 
invisible. High doctrine concerning the Church is favourable 
enough to such a view of things. Belief in the infallibility of 
the existing Church, in its miraculous powers, and in frequent 
revelations to the higher Saints, looked all this way. Again, it 
is well known how mysticism tended to Pantheism. Striving 
after absorption in God, men learned to identify their own minds, 
more or less, with Deity. The Divine Spirit was believed to 
dwell in all human souls, and needed only to be stirred up 
within them. The inclination to look wholly within, neglect of 
the objective, cultivation only of the subjective — all this too 
readily takes a pantheistic direction. And so we find many sects 
of medieval mystics lapsing at length into pure Pantheism — a 
state of belief in which it is plain enough that anything like the 
Christian doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures is impos- 
sible, as it cannot be distinguished from the illumination of any 
devout mind, or from the inspirations of genius. This is a thing 
of great importance to observe, as it shows itself in subsequent 
ages of Church History. Mysticism and extreme spiritualism 
destroy any definite doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture, and 
they very readily glide into Pantheism. 

6. The Eeformation, of course, introduced much thought and 
controversy about Scripture. " The sufficiency of the Scriptures 
for salvation" became a Eeformation watchword: Scripture, 
the written word of God, — not the unwritten record of the 
Church, Tradition. The natural inclination was to a very high 
esteem of the Bible, as the definite deposit of Christian truth, in 
contradistinction to the indefiniteness of the traditions of the 
Church, and of that teaching of the Holy Spirit ever present with 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIEATION. 



293 



the Church, on which the Eoman divines insisted. Neverthe- 
less, the tendency of the Beforination was to boldness of thought 
and freedom of inquiry. Erasmus, the great forerunner of 
Luther, had from his critical investigations been led to a some- 
what freer view of inspiration than had been common before 
him. He thought it unnecessary to attribute everything in the 
Apostles to miraculous teaching. Christ suffered the Apostles 
to err, and that too after the descent of the Paraclete, but not so 
as to endanger the faith.* Even Luther, the great master 
mind of the age, with his strong subjective tendency, and with 
his indomitable boldness, ventured to subject the books of the 
New Testament to the criterion of his own intuition. The 
teaching of St. Paul penetrated and convinced his soul ; St. 
James seemed to contradict St. Paul ; and his Epistle was 
rejected as an Epistle of straw. There is reason to believe that 
he afterwards regretted and retracted ; but words once spoken 
reach far and wide, and can never be unsaid again. 

7. The tendency of Calvin and the Calvinist reformers was 
less subjective and more scholastic than that of Luther and the 
Lutherans. Their distinct and definite system of doctrine, like 
that of their forerunners Augustine and Aquinas, naturally 
found a place for the plenary and even verbal inspiration of the 
Scriptures, so that some of the Swiss Confessions speak of simple 
dictation by the Holy Ghost. The Kemonstrants or Arminians, 
on the other hand, were more disposed to nationalism than the 
generality of the reformed ; and writers, like Grotius and Epis- 
eopius, made clear distinctions between the Divine and the 
human elements in the writers of the Old and New Tes- 
taments.-)- 

The Socinians were, of course, the most rationalising sect of 
those which early sprang from the Reformation, a fungus- 
growth, rather than one of the natural branches. At first, how- 
ever, they took the same view as other Protestant writers of the 
authority of Holy Writ, only they were less sensitive about 
difficulties and apparent discrepancies in Scripture, and more 



* Non est necesse ut quicquid fuit in 
Apostolis protinus ad miraculum vo- 
cemus. Passus est errare suos Christus, 
etiam post acceptum Paracletura, sed 
non usque ad fidei periculum. — Erasm. 
Epistt., lib. ii., torn. iv. Edit. Basil. 



f E. g. A Spiritu Sancto dictari Ms- 
torias non fuit opus. Satis fuit scrip- 
torem memoria valere. — Grotius, Vot. 
pro pace Eccles., torn. iii. p. 672. Lond. 
1679. 



294 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII.. 



disposed to cut and square it so as to accord with what appeared 
to them to be reason and common sense. This tendency more 
and more fully developed itself. The modern Unitarian is a 
genuine Eationalist often little different from a Deist. 

The mystical spirit) which had long been swelling up under 
the weight of the Medieval Church, sometimes wholly within it, 
sometimes bursting forth from the pressure, showed itself in 
many places and many forms, after the triumph of the Keforma- 
tion. Its elevation of the subjective over the objective, of the 
inward life over the outward letter, led insensibly to a disregard 
of the Bible in comparison with the internal testimony and the 
intuition of the soul. The Anabaptists of Germany were of the 
coarsest class of mystics. Among the best have been the 
Quakers in this country. The leading principle of George Fox, 
their founder, was the doctrine of the Inward Light. This is 
the true principle of all knowledge of religion. The outward. 
Word is chiefly valuable as it stirs up the Word within. The 
highest source of knowledge is this inward illumination. All 
outward forms, all outward tests, all creeds and confessions, are 
strictly forbidden. Even the Bible must be subordinated to the 
light of God within. It is evident that, on this principle, there 
can be no distinction between the inspiration of Prophets and 
Apostles and the inspiration of every devout soul. It is also 
. observable how this theory produces results like those which 
spring from the Roman doctrine of tradition. The written 
Word of God is no longer the final court of appeal in controver- 
sies of doctrine. The Church of Borne finds an infallible inter- 
preter in that Divine Spirit which ever dwells in and guides the 
Church. The mystic has an infallible interpreter in his own 
bosom, who not only opens his understanding that he may 
understand the Scriptures, but communicates directly and sen- 
sibly truth to the soul. It is also very deserving of remark, 
however painful it may be, that at one time the Quakers were 
rapidly hurrying into Rationalism, and even Socinianism— the 
coldest forms of unbelief — from the warm mysticism of their 
first founders. 

To come nearer to our own times, the whole spirit of the last 
century in Germany was subjective. There seemed a reaction 
from the positive spirit of the seventeenth century, which has 
been called the middle age of the Reformation. Pietism was 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION. 



29~ 



the form taken by the religious revival, a form which was emi- 
nently subjective,, and which partook much of the mystical. 
The philosophical spirit was of the same character. The very 
principle of illuminism (auklarung) was, that there is in man's 
inmost consciousness an intuitional knowledge of truth. Its 
motto — " Wahr ist was klar ist," " that is true which is clear,'^ 
— sufficiently indicates its character. Proceeding from such a 
ground, and raising Natural Eeligion to the rank of a Eevelation, 
Tollner, the disciple of Wolff, reduced Scripture to the level of 
a natural light * At the same time, the Pietists used the Bible, 
not so much to be the source of truth and the fountain of faith, 
as for a book of devotion and to raise pious emotions.f In both 
ways there was a move towards the confounding of the light of 
Nature with the light of Eevelation, of the light of the Spirit in 
the devout or illuminated soul with the light which had been 
specially vouchsafed to Prophets and Apostles for communicating 
God's truth to the world. 

8. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, the Deisim 
which had been troubling England, had passed through the 
alembic of French scepticism, and now settled down in a shower 
of Eationalism on Germany. The Eationalism of Paulus, the 
Pantheism of Hegel, the historical myth of Strauss, derive their 
pedigree from the writings of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Toland. 
Tindal, and other English Deists of the seventeenth and early 
eighteenth centuries, through the school of Eousseau and Yol- 
taire.J The special principle of Lord Herbert and his followers, 
the Deists, was that there were several positive religions — 
Clmstianity, Judaism, 2>Iohammedism, &c. In the main all 
these are the same. The general religion is at the bottom of all 
of them, i. e,, the Eeligion of Nature, a religion founded in the 
natural perception of truth, the intuitional consciousness of the 
human mind. Positive religions may be very good for practical 
purposes ; but all that is positive in them is evil, or at the best 
worthless ; the valuable part being that which they hold in 
common of the general religion. It was this principle which 
passed through the various forms of French infidelity, German 



* See Kalinis, ' Hist, of German I % See Kahnis as above, p. 31, &e. 

Protestantism/ English Translation, by \ McCaul's Eationalism and Deistic In- 

Meyer, p. 116. : fidelity, passim. 

f lb., p". 100, 11G. 



296 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



nationalism and Pantheism, and which has been brought back 
to us, as the highest result of modern discoveries in science 
and mental philosophy. How it was calculated to act upon 
the theory of inspiration, and to unsettle . it even with those 
who had not become either Rationalists or Deists, it is needless 
to remark. Where a shadow of infidelity is obscuring the 
light, many, who are not wholly under its darkness, will yet 
pass through the penumbra that surrounds it. Even the apolo- 
gists in the last century, from the wish to take positions which 
were impregnable, surrendered, at least for argument's sake, the 
higher ground of their forerunners in the faith. And, in the like 
manner, among the German divines, who still held Christian 
and orthodox opinions, there was a tendency to depart from the 
higher doctrine of inspiration held by the Church and the Re- 
formers ; to speak of degrees of inspiration, of fallibility in 
things earthly, of a Divine influence elevating the mental facul- 
ties of the sacred writers ; not simply to ascribe all to the direct 
teaching of the Spirit of God.* 

9. Distinct theories of inspiration were in old times seldom 
propounded, even where some attention was directed to the ques- 
tion. Definite controversies upon it scarcely arose. The present 
century has been rife in both ; and they have prevailed not a 
little among ourselves. Several causes have contributed to call 
them forth. First, and chiefly, the spread of rationalising spe- 
culations, and the consequent ■ unsettling of faith. t Next, the 
greater attention which has been paid to the criticism of the 
Bible, and especially of the New Testament, has exposed to view 
some of the difficulties concerning the origin of the books of the 
Bible, concerning the historical accuracy of some statements, 
concerning the slight apparent variations in the testimony of the 
Evangelists. In ordinary historians these would puzzle no one. 
The strictest integrity is compatible with slight inaccuracy or 
divergence of testimony ; but if all was the work of God's Holy 
Spirit, speaking through human agents, the least discrepancy is 
formidable. Hence the human element has been thought more 



* See Kahnis, pp. 116, 117. 

+ It is important to observe, that 
this was first in time as well as in 
importance. Dr. McCaul has shown 
clearly (' nationalism and Deistic In- 
fidelity ') that the spread of unbelieving 



opinions in Germany was first, the 
criticism came afterwards. Faith in 
Ecvelation was shaken by Deism and 
Rationalism, and then the unfriendly 
criticism was brought to hear upon the 
records of Christianity. 



Essay VIL] 



INSPIRATION. 



297 



of among modem critics, and by some lias been elevated above 
the Divine. Thirdly, the rapid discoveries of modern science 
have been supposed to contradict the records of the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures ; and, in order to account for such a contradic- 
tion, efforts have been made to interpret anew the words of 
Moses ; and, where these have proved unsatisfactory, many have 
more or less believed that the writers of the historical books 
were merely chroniclers of historical events or collectors of an- 
cient records, the providence of God having watched over the 
preservation of such records, but the Spirit of God having in no 
sense dictated them. Still freer views have been propounded ; 
but this may suffice as the expression of the thoughts of serious 
men. 

10. One of the first among ourselves to put forth a bold theory 
of inspiration was Coleridge. His ' Confessions of an Enquiring 
Spirit ' was indeed not published till after his death ; but the 
tone of many former writings is much the same. In the 
posthumous work just mentioned he unfolds his theory pretty 
freely. Of the Bible he speaks as a library of infinite value, 
as that which must have a Divine Spirit in it, from its appeal 
to all the hidden springs of feeling in our hearts. " In short," 
he writes, " whatever finds me bears witness that it has proceeded 
from a Holy Spirit." (Letter i.) " In the Bible there is more 
that finds me than I have experienced in all other books 
put together ; the words of the Bible find me at greater depths 
of my being ; and whatever finds me brings with it an irre- 
sistible evidence of its having proceeded from the Holy Spirit." 
(Letter ii.) But then he protests against " the doctrine which 
requires me to believe that not only what finds me, but all 
that exists in the sacred volume, and which I am bound to 
find therein, was not only inspired by, that is, composed by men 
under the actuating influence of, the Holy Spirit, but likewise 
dictated by an Infallible Intelligence ; that the writers, each and 
all, were divinely informed, as well as inspired." The very 
essence of " this doctrine is this, that one and the same Intelli- 
gence is speaking in the unity of a person, which unity is 
no more broken by the diversity of the pipes through which it 
makes itself audible, than is a tune by the different instruments 
on which it is played by a consummate musician equally perfect 
in all. One instrument may be more capacious than another, 



298 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay YII. 



but as far as its compass extends, and in what it sounds forth, it 
will be true to the conception of the master." Such a doctrine, 
he conceives, must imply infallibility in physical science and in 
everything else as much as in faith, in things natural no less 
than in spiritual. He expresses a full belief " that the word 
of the Lord came to Samuel, to Isaiah, to others, and that 
the words which gave utterance to the same are faithfully re- 
corded/' But for the recording he does not think that there 
was need of any supernatural working, except in such cases as 
those in which God not only utters certain express words to a 
prophet, but also enjoins him to record them. In the latter 
case he accepts them " as supernaturally communicated and 
their recording as executed under special guidance." The argu- 
ments of Coleridge are calculated rather to pull down than to 
build up. He brings many reasons against a rigid mechanical 
theory, against a belief that the Bible is simply the voice of 
God's Holy Spirit uttered through different organs or instru- 
ments ; but he does not fix any limit, he does not say how far 
he admits Divine teaching or inspiration to extend, nor does he 
apparently draw any line of distinction between the inspiration 
of holy men of old and the spiritual and providential direction 
of enlightened men in every age and nation. 

Wherever Coleridge has trodden Mr. Maurice follows him ; 
not that he is a servile imitator, but he is a zealous disciple, and 
one who generally outdoes his master. In his ' Theological 
Essays ' he begins to speak of the inspiration of poets and pro- 
phets among the Greeks ; he speaks again of the quickening 
and informing spirit, to which all good men ascribe their own 
teaching and enlightenment ; he quotes the language of our 
Liturgy as ascribing to " God's holy inspiration " the power of 
" thinking those things that be good ;" and then he asks the ques- 
tion, " Ought we in our sermons to say, ' Brethren, we beseech 
you not to suppose the inspiration of Scripture to at all resemble 
that for which we have been praying ; they are generically and 
essentially unlike ; it is blasphemous to connect them in our 
minds; the Church is very guilty for having suggested the 
association ?' " Proceeding in this course he naturally arrives 
at the conclusion that all which is good and beautiful comes 
from the inspiration of the Spirit of God, and that the sacred 
words of Scripture came in the same manner from the same 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION. 



299 



Spirit. (See Essay xiii.) In some of his writings, especially in 
his work on ' Sacrifice,' he appears to have carried his disbelief 
of a more special inspiration of Holy Scripture to a greater 
length than in his ' Theological Essays/ as where God's tempting 
of Abraham to slay his son is attributed to a horrible thought 
coming over him and haunting him. 

A very able and interesting writer on the same side of the 
same subject is Mr. Morell in his ' Philosophy of Eehgion.' The 
work is one of considerable acuteness and philosophical power. 
The writer's theory of inspiration is based on his theory of the 
human mind. The different powers of consciousness he classes 
thus : 

Powers of Consciousness . . to which correspond . . Emotions. 1 

1. The Sensational „ „ The Instincts. 

2. The Perceptive „ „ The Animal Passions. 

3. The Logical „ „ Eelational Emotions. 

4. The Intuitional „ ^Esthetic, Moral, and 

Eeligious Emotions. 

Now, the intuitional consciousness, he contends, is that which 
alone is properly susceptible of religious impressions and reli- 
gious truths. Revelation he considers to involve an immediate 
intuition of Divine realities. All revelation implies an intelli- 
gible object presented, and a given power of recipiency in the 
subject, which power is lodged in the intuitional consciousness. 
In distinguishing revelation and inspiration, he defines " revela- 
tion, in the Christian sense, as that act of the Divine power by 
which God presents the realities of the spiritual world imme- 
diately to the human mind, while inspiration denotes that espe- 
cial influence wrought upon the faculties of the subject, by virtue 
of which he is able to grasp these realities in their perfect fulness 
and integrity." (p. 150.) " God made a revelation of Himself 
to the world in Jesus Christ;^ but it was the inspiration of the 
Apostles, which enabled them clearly to discern it." 

Mr. Morell argues that " the canonicity of the New Testament 
Scriptures was decided upon solely on the ground of their pre- 
senting to the whole Church clear statements of Apostolical Chris- 
tianity. The idea of their being written by any special command 
of God, or verbal dictation of the Spirit, was an idea altogether 
foreign to the primitive Christians" (p. 165). "The proper idea 
of inspiration, as applied to the Holy Scriptures, does not include 



300 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIE 



either miraculous powers, verbal dictation, or any distinct com- 
mission from God." (76.) On the contrary, it consists " in the 
impartation of clear intuitions of moral and spiritual truth to the 
mind by extraordinary means. According to this view of the 
case, inspiration, as an internal phenomenon, is perfectly consistent 
with the natural laws of the human mind — it is a higher kind of 
potency, which every man to a certain degree possesses" (p. 166). 
This view, he thinks, " gives full consistency to the progressive 
character of Scripture morality" (p. 167). "It gives a satisfac- 
tory explanation of the minor discrepancies to be found in the 
sacred writers" (p. 170), whether those discrepancies be between 
Scripture and science, or in statements of facts, or in reasoning. 
In every case in which the moral nature is highly purified, and 
so a harmony of the spiritual being with the mind of God pro- 
duced, a removal of all outward disturbances from the heart, 
" What," he asks, " is to prevent or disturb the immediate intui- 
tion of Divine things ? ' Blessed are the pure in heart, for thev 
shall see God ' " (p. 186). 

It is clear that this theory makes great purity of heart, or 
high sanctification, equivalent to, or the unfailing instrument of, 
inspiration. If one man is a better Christian than another, and 
so has a purer heart, he must be more inspired than the other. 
Hence, if a man of modern times could be found of a higher re- 
ligious tone and character than an Apostle, he would have a 
higher intuition of Divine things, and therefore would know 
Christian truth more infallibly. Moreover, it appears that the 
value of the Scriptures consists, not in their proceeding from any 
direct command of God, or from any infallible guidance of His 
Spirit, but in their embodying the teaching and experience of 
men whose hearts were elevated, and so their understandings 
enlightened ; to this it being added, in the case of the New Tes- 
tament, that the writers were such as were specially qualified to 
represent the Apostolical Church, and so to transmit its spirit 
and teaching to us. 

A writer of less ability, but more boldness, Mr. Mac Naught 
of Liverpool, has carried the same theory to its furthest limits. 
He defines inspiration to be " that action of the Divine Spirit by 
which, apart from any idea of infallibility, all that is good in 
man, beast, or matter, is originated and sustained" (p. 136, 
Second Edition). He denies all distinction between genius and 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION. 



301 



inspiration. He doubts not that " David, Solomon, Isaiah, or 
Paul would have spoken of everything, which may with pro- 
priety be called a work of genius, or of cleverness, or of holiness," 
as " works of the Spirit of God, written by Divine inspiration." 
(p. 132.) 

11. The historical sketch thus rapidly given seems to show 
that there have always been some slight differences of tone and. 
opinion touching this important question, but that these differ- 
ences have never so markedly come out as in the nineteenth 
century. The subject at present causes great anxiety, and not 
without reason. Many feel that, if they must give up a high doc- 
trine of inspiration, they give up Christianity ; and yet they 
think that a high doctrine is scarcely tenable. Such a feeling is 
not unnatural, and yet it is not wholly true. All the history, 
and even all the great doctrines of the Gospel, might be capable 
of proof, and so deserving of credence, though we were obliged 
to adopt almost the lowest of the modern theories of inspiration. 
For instance, all, or almost all, the arguments of Butler, Paley, 
Lardner, and other like authors, are independent of the question, 
" What is the nature and degree of Scriptural inspiration ? " 
Paley, for instance, undertakes to prove the truth of Christ's 
resurrection and of the Gospel history, and thence the truth of 
the doctrines which Christ taught to the world. But this he 
argues out, for the most part, on principles of common historical 
evidence. He treats the Apostles as twelve common men, of 
common honesty and common intelligence. If they could not 
have been deceived, and had no motive to deceive the world, 
then surely we must accept their testimony as true. But if 
their testimony is true, Jesus Christ must have lived, and taught, 
and worked miracles, and risen from the dead, and so in Him we 
have an accredited witness sent from God. His teaching, there- 
fore, must have been the truth ; and if we have good grounds for 
believing that His disciples carefully treasured up His teaching, 
and faithfully handed it on to us, we have then in the New Tes- 
tament an unquestionable record of the will and of the truth of 
God. Even if the Apostles and Evangelists had no special 
inspiration, yet, if we admit their care and fidelity, we may trust 
to their testimony, and so accept their teaching as true. 

So then, even if we were driven to take the lowest view of in- 
spiration, we are not bound to give up our faith. External 



302 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VH. 



evidence must almost of necessity begin by taking low ground. 
It must treat nothing as certain until it is proved. It must not, 
therefore, even presume that witnesses are honest till it has 
found reason to think them so ; and, of course, it cannot treat 
them as inspired till it meets with something which compels an 
acknowledgment of then- inspiration. This is taking the ex- 
tremest case, one in which we altogether doubt the inspiration 
of the xipostles. A fortiori, we need not throw away all faith, if 
we should be led to think that some books of the Old Testament 
are only historical records, collected by Jewish antiquarians, and 
bound up with the writings of prophets, as venerable and valu- 
able memorials of the peculiar people of God. All this might 
be, and yet God may have spoken by holy men of old, and after- 
wards more fully by His Son. 

Some Christian controversialists, who take high ground them- 
selves, write as if they thought that Christianity was not worth 
defending, unless it was defended exactly on their principles. 
The minds of the young more especially are sometimes greatly 
endangered by this means. The defender of the Gospel may be 
but an indifferent reasoner. He fails to make his ground sure 
and strong. His reader finds more forcible, at least more 
specious, argiunents elsewhere. He thinks the advocate he 
rested on defeated, his arguments answered and upset, and Chris- 
tianity itself seems lost. Now, we may surely begin by saying, 
that the question of inspiration is, within certain limits, a ques- 
tion internal to Christianity. No doubt, it may materially affect 
the evidences of Christianity ; but the questions of verbal inspi- 
ration, mechanical inspiration, dynamical inspiration, and the 
like, are all questions on which persons believing in the Gospel 
may differ. There is a degree of latitude which must be fatal to 
faith ; but within certain Kniits men may differ, and yet believe. 
We shall be wise to take safe ground ourselves, and to bear as 
charitably as we can with those who may take either higher or 
lower. Only it cannot be concealed that the temper of mind 
which disposes to a very low doctrine of inspiration is one thai- 
may not improbably lead in the end to the rejection of many 
religious truths — to scepticism, if not to unbelief. 

12. It seems pretty generally agreed among thoughtful men 
at present, that definite theories of inspiration are doubtful and 
dangerous. The existence of a human element, and the existence 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION". 



303 



of a Divine element, are generally acknowledged ; but the exact 
relation of the one to the other it may be difficult to define. Yet 
some thoughts may aid us to an approximation to the truth, per- 
haps sufficiently clear for practical purposes. 

13. In the first place, then, let us consider for a moment what 
is the real principle which seems to actuate" those writers and 
thinkers, of the present day especially, who endeavour to root 
out all distinction between the inspiration of the Apostles and 
Prophets, and the ordinary illumination of good and wise men. 
Is it not that morbid shrinking from a belief in anything mi- 
raculous in religious history, now so commonly prevalent ? that 
fear to admit the possibility that the Creator of the universe 
should ever specially interfere with the universe which He has 
created ? There can be no question but that that inspiration of 
Holy Scripture in which the Church has generally believed is of 
the nature of a miracle ; and so its rejection follows upon the 
rejection of miracles in general. Many marvellous things exist 
in nature, things at least as marvellous as any miracles recorded 
in Scripture. It is marvellous that the worlds should have come 
into being, and should all be under the government of the 
strictest laws and the most uncleviating rules — that life should 
exist at all — that new life should be constantly bursting forth — 
that eyes should open curiously formed to see, and ears curiously 
constructed to hear ; — all this, and much beside, is as marvellous 
as the suspension of a natural law, as the restoring life to the 
body from which it had gone forth, as the giving sight to the 
blind, or hearing to the deaf. But the latter startles us into 
conviction that some living personal being of creative power has 
newly put forth his strength : the former state of things is so 
general, uniform, and constantly recurring, that we can go on as 
usual without much thinking of it, call it Nature, or perhaps 
Deity, or any other abstract generality, and so rest satisfied. 

14. Without doubt we witness in the universe the constant pre- 
valence of general laws, and the regulation of all things by them. 
In proportion to this general constancy is our natural expecta- 
tion that it will continue. And, moreover, even though we 
may be led to believe that the whole must have been framed, 
and that the laws must have been given by a creative intelli- 
gence ; still the uniform operation of those laws disposes us to 
doubt the probability that they will ever be interfered with by 



304 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



the hand that first ordered them. This doubt is strengthened 
by the belief that the wisdom, which first gave being to an 
universe, could never have wrought so imperfectly as that its 
active interference should afterwards be needed, to remedy 
defects or to repair the machinery. And all this might perhaps 
be probable enough, if we could see but a natural creation, and 
if there were no moral and rational creation too. But suppose 
it to be true, that there is in the physical universe, and more or 
less connected with matter and the laws of matter, a multitude 
of. intelligent, rational, moral, and accountable beings ; some 
more powerful than others ; some, the angels, wholly good ; some, 
the evil angels, wholly bad ; some of a mixed character, like 
man ; all capable, more or less, of communication with each other 
— those indeed of mixed character closely connected with matter, 
joined to material bodies, whilst the more powerful intelligences, 
good and evil, are freer and more independent of mere physical 
influences : suppose, too, that there is one great Intellect, one 
Sovereign Mind, who made all, and who governs all; with 
premises like these, where is the improbability that there should 
be occasional interferences with natural laws? Life does not 
exist at all without producing some interference with the mere 
laws of matter and motion. Where intelligent beings exist 
capable of acting on material substances, they ever do mould 
those material substances to their will, and make the laws of 
nature serve them. If created intelligences superior to man 
have any power to act through material instruments, we should 
expect that they could only act, as man does, by taking advan- 
tage of the laws by which matter is guided, and so controlling 
one law by bringing a more powerful law to bear upon it. Even 
of the providence of the Supreme Being, if that providence be 
continually at work, controlling the moral and intellectual, and 
upholding the material creation, it is most probable that such 
providential agency would be exercised in overruling and 
directing natural causes and laws rather than in displacing or 
superseding them. But there certainly seems no a priori 
improbability that the Creator should be also the Kuler of the 
universe ; that where the creation is moral and intelligent, He 
should rule and interfere as He might not where it was simply 
material or animal; that, where moral, personal beings were 
acting upon one another, striving to benefit, and striving to 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION. 



305 



ruin one another, He too at times should be at hand, to punish 
or to protect. And so the doctrine of a special providence 
seems only consistent with the belief in a personal God. But 
the step from thence to a belief in miracles is no great stride. 
For, if the great personal Creator rules and guides and inter- 
feres in the affairs of His creation, though He would be likeliest 
to do so commonly by mere guidance of natural laws, yet, if 
there were need or occasion for it, it must be quite as easy for 
Him to interfere by the entire suspension of those laws, or by 
a temporary alteration of them.* 

15. Indeed it is hard to see how miracles should appear either 
impossible or improbable ; but either on the theory that what 
we see commonly we must see always, or else on the theory 
that there is no personal providence of God. And, in short, is 
it not true, that the natural tendency of those who try to get rid 
of miracle and special inspiration is to the resolving of provi- 
dence into law, and of God into simple intelligence ? We are all 
well aware that we see the government of law, not only in the 
physical, but even in the intellectual world; and there are 
those, who, from observing this, have been led to a belief in law, 
and nothing but law. God with them is but law ; and provi- 
dential or moral government gives place to mere necessity. Of 
course, this is simple Atheism, and involves all the difficulties, 
as well as all the miseries, of Atheism. And yet, surely it is 
more consistent and logical than the system, which does not 
deny the wisdom that seems to have planned and still seems to 
order all things, but which yet shrinks from acknowledging the 
distinct, individual personality of the Creator, His personal 
presence to all the universe which He has created, His superin- 
tending providence over it, and His active interference in it. 
Unquestionably this latter is the doctrine of the Hebrew Bible, 
and that which Jesus Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount. 
But philosophic religion talks to us of a general principle of 



* Of course, if Professor Baden 
Powell's theory be true, that the phy- 
sical and the spiritual worlds are so 
separate that they can never come into 
contact, then all this is impossible. 
But then all creation is impossible. 
The spiritual could never have created ! truth 
the material. Indeed, the union of 



soul and body must be impossible ; at 
all events, all religious knowledge must 
be impossible. It can be founded on 
no evidence, and can result only from 
certain convictions of the mind, wholly 
incapable of being tested as to their 



X 



306 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



intelligence diffused throughout all things, moving, and breathing 
in, and animating all beings. Now this general principle of 
intelligence sounds philosophical enough; but how can it be 
reconciled with what Englishmen call common sense ? What, 
on principles of common reason, can be meant by intelligence 
where there is no intellect, or a great principle of mind where 
there is no personal mind at all ? We know what is meant by 
the intelligence of a man, or the intelligence of a beast — intelli- 
gence being the power of perceiving, understanding, and reason- 
ing predicable of the mind of that man or that beast. In like 
manner we can understand that if there be one great infinite 
mind, then infinite intelligence may be predicable of that 
infinite mind. But to say that there is any general principle 
of intelligence separable and distinguishable from any particular 
mind, is surely to palter with us in a double sense. We can no 
more appreciate intelligence as separated from the intellect of 
which it is a quality or attribute, than we can understand agency 
without an agent, potency without a power, sight without a seer, 
thought without a thinker, or life without that which lives. In 
short, may we not demur altogether to mere abstractions, except 
as they may exist in the mind, or in systems of philosophy ? 
And so, is not the conclusion inevitable, that our real alterna- 
tive lies between a mere Stoical law, a Buddhist Kharma, blind 
and inexorable, working in matter, it is useless to inquire whence 
or how — between this and a belief in a God, personal, present, 
Maker, Kuler, Guicler of all things, and of all men ? 

16. Give us this, as the Bible gives Him to us : and though 
we should never expect Him to be perpetually setting aside the 
laws which He has made for the universe, yet we need not — 
rather we cannot — believe, that He should be so inevitably fet- 
tered by them, as that He should not continually guide them for 
the good of His intelligent and moral creatures — guide them, as 
in a less degree those creatures themselves can guide them, or 
that, when He may see fit, He should not suspend, or even for a 
season alter them. And if this latter contingency should ever 
take place, we should naturally expect that it would be never so 
probable as when it was His pleasure to communicate to rational 
beings some special revelation of His will, and to teach them 
concerning Himself what they might not be able to learn from 
mere natural phenomena. 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION. 



307 



Can there be any inconsistency in such a putting aside of the 
veil of nature, and giving man a somewhat clearer yision of God ? 
Doubtless, other courses are possible. God might be pleased, 
instead of making any objective communications to mankind, to 
breathe silently into each individual spirit, and to teach 
separately each one of His will and of Himself. But no one 
has a right to say that such must be God's plan of action — that 
such only is consistent with Divine wisdom, or human capacity, 
or philosophical theology. If God be not the mere pervading 
intelligence, which informs the universe, but which can exert 
itself only through the medium of things in the universe ; if, on 
the contrary, He is a personal, present ruler and guide, there 
can be no inconsistency in the belief that He may at times let 
Himself be heard by those who can hear Him — in other and 
clearer tones than the voices of mere natural phenomena, or 
even of the intuitional consciousness. 

17. Now, the common course which we see philosophic scepti- 
cism taking at present is this : [First, there is a doubt about 
miracles, then about special inspiration. To build our faith in any 
degree on miracles is unwise. Inspiration is wholly a question of 
degree. One man has by the teaching or breathing of God's Spirit 
greater insight into spiritual truth than another. The Apostles, 
doubtless, had an unusual brightness of such vision, and so we 
may truly call their writings inspired ; but the difference between 
then inspiration and that of St. Augustine, or even of Plato, is 
but a difference of degree. Next comes a' doubt or a denial of 
the existence of personal spiritual beings. The devil, Satan, 
wicked spirits, are but names for a general evil principle, which 
we cannot but see and feel influencing and pervading ourselves 
and all things around us. Angels are soon placed in the same 
category ; and the last step of all reduces God Himself to a 
principle of intelligence, if it does not go yet farther, and make 
Him but a law. 

But in all honesty, is there a middle course ? Does not 
the Bible at all events — Old Testament and New alike— 
speak of a present, personal God, of a multitude of personal 
spiritual beings — some good and others evil — working 
around us and within us, of miracles wrought by teachers sent 
from God, of predictions uttered before the event, of holy 
men of old moved by the Spirit of God to speak things, which 

x 2 



308 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



could be known to none but God Himself? It is quite 
impossible to get rid of all this, and to retain the Bible as 
in any proper sense true. Let it be said, that good men who 
wrote books of the Bible were good men, but spoke according 
to the prejudices of their times. They believed in prophecies 
and miracles, and evil spirits, and so spoke of them. Their 
inspiration quickened their intuitions, but it did not make them 
infallible, and so in these matters they may have erred. But, if 
Christianity be Christianity, and not a system of mere morals 
and philosophy, there was One Man, who was so much more 
than man, that if we disbelieve Him, we make God Himself a 
liar. And may we not ask, if His discourses be not so unfaith- 
fully handed down to us, that we might as well or better not 
have them at all, whether He did not perpetually appeal to 
miracles, whether He did not continually quote prophecies as 
fulfilled, or soon to be fulfilled, whether He did not speak much 
of angels and devils, whether He did not in the most signal 
manner promise to His disciples the guidance and teaching of 
His Holy Spirit, to bring to their remembrance all that He had 
said to them, and to lead them into all truth ? Is it possible to 
reject all this without rejecting Christ ? 

18. And so much of miracles and inspiration generally. Now 
let us take a few facts, and see what they seem to teach us. 
We have a number of different books written in different styles, 
indicating the different characters of the writers. At times, too, 
there appear slight diversities of statements in trifling matters 
of detail. Here we mark a human element. If God spoke, it 
is plain that He spoke through man ; if God inspired, He 
inspired man. Even the Gospel miracles were often worked 
with some instrumental means ; no wonder, then, that when 
God would teach men, He w r ould teach through human agency. 
And the difference of style — perhaps the slight discrepancies in 
statements — seem to satisfy us that some portions at least of the 
Bible were not simply dictated by God to man ; there was not 
what is called mere mechanical or organic inspiration ; God did 
not simply speak God's words, using as a mere machine man's 
lips to speak them with. Of course, we must not forget the 
benefit we derive from these differences between writers of the 
same narrative. The apparent or trifling discrepancies in the 
statements of the different Evangelists, for instance, convince us 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIBATION. 



309 



that they were independent witnesses, and that the whole story 
did not arise from some well concerted plan to deceive the 
world: the homely and even barbarous style of some of the 
writers proves to us that they were really fishermen, and not 
philosophers ; and so we have a convincing evidence that the 
deepest system of theology, and the noblest code of ethics ever 
propounded — the one stirring the depths of the whole human 
heart, the other guiding all human life — came, not from the 
profound speculations of the wisest of mankind, but either from 
God Himself, or else from a source more inexplicable and im- 
possible ; from the poor, the narrow-minded, and the untaught. 
But whilst we see the benefit of all this, and admire the wisdom 
which so ordered it, we learn from it that there must have been 
a human element in Scripture ; that God may, nay must, have 
spoken, but that He dealt His own common dealing with us — 
that is, He used earthly instruments for giving heavenly bless- 
ings, human means for communicating Divine truth. 

Now, let us look the other way. Scripture is not a mere 
system of theology, nor is it a mere historical record. If it were 
either or both of these, and nothing more, of course we could 
believe that nothing might be needed, beyond the quickening of 
the intuitional consciousness, to enable men to conceive its 
truths and to communicate them to others. There is, however, 
as has been already noticed, a distinctly miraculous element in 
it ; and here, if we admit its existence, we cannot fail to see the 
working of a present, personal God. Take away the miraculous 
element, and we may easily get into any kind of philosophical 
abstraction. Admit it, and we are brought back again into the 
intelligible region of common, plain sense. 

If anything in the world can be supernatural or miraculous, 
it surely must be the infallible foreknowledge of future events. 
No elevation of the intuitional consciousness can account for 
such foreknowledge. None can certainly foretel the future, but 
one who can certainly guide the future. Do we, then, admit 
that any of the prophets in the Old Testament were enabled to 
foretel coming events, the events of the Gospel history in par- 
ticular ? Some modern writers go so far as to deny this in toto. 
According to them every prophecy of the Old Testament con- 
cerned, primarily at least, contemporaneous history, or history so 
nearly contemporaneous, that it required only common foresight 



310 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



and " old experience " to look into it. Burke early shadowed 
forth the French Kevolution : Isaiah, on the same principle, 
could forewarn Israel of its dangers, threaten sinners with punish- 
ment, and promise protection to penitents. Of course, we can 
understand such a view; but can we admit it and not reject 
Christianity? And let us remember that, in arguing on the 
nature of inspiration, we are not arguing in proof of Christianity ; 
but that, admitting the truth of Christianity, we are inquiring 
into somewhat which, as has been already observed, is really in- 
ternal to Christianity. Most Christians are ready to believe that 
the passages of the Old Testament to which our Lord and His 
Apostles appealed, as proofs of His Divine mission and of the 
truth of their teaching, were really predictions, and not guesses. 
This is not the place to enter at length into such a question. 
But, if we just think of what Jacob said of Shiloh — Moses, of a 
prophet like himself — David and others, of a great Son of David 
— Isaiah, in his ninth and fifty-third chapters, of a Child born, a 
Son given, called Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace, 
and of a righteous Servant, on whom the Lokd should lay the 
iniquity of us all — Daniel, of Messiah the Prince, cut off, but not 
for Himself, and of one like a Son of Man, to whom a kingdom 
is given by the Ancient of days, an everlasting kingdom, a do- 
minion that shall not pass away — Haggai, of the glory of the 
second temple, so much surpassing that of the first — Malachi, of 
the forerunner of the Messiah — and many prophecies of like 
kind ; we shall feel that the burden of proof must lie with those 
who deny, not with those who believe, that there were prophets, 
who bore witness to the coming of the Christ centuries before 
His birth.* We may remember that these predictions have 
been preserved to us both in the original Hebrew, and in trans- 
lations made from the Hebrew before the birth of Christ, made, 
not by~Christians, but by Jews — that the more ancient Jews did 
undeniably interpret these prophecies, as pointing forward to a 



* It matters little to this argument 
whether all the books of the Old Testa- 
ment were written by those whose 
names they bear ; whether, for in- 
stance, the last chapters of Isaiah were 
Isaiah's or some other's ; whether the 
book of Daniel was written at the 
time of the captivity, or not collected 
fill some centuries later. It is certain 



they were all written before Christ ; 
and if in them there be found pro- 
phecies of the Messiah, prophecies, be 
they many or few, like precious stones 
imbedded in a rock ; we have then the 
phenomenon existing, and we have to 
explain how it came. Idoneum, opinor, 
testimonium divinitatis Veritas divina- 
tionis. (Tert. Apolog. c. 20.) 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION. 



311 



prince who should be sent from heaven to save their own nation, 
and to bless other nations in them. Comparatively modern Jews 
have explained some of these prophecies away, because they too 
manifestly favour the Christians ; but even so, they continue to 
believe that the Scriptures foretold a Messiah. Moreover, we have 
the clearest testimonies from Jews and Gentiles alike (Jews and 
Gentiles who never became Christians, and so are independent 
witnesses) that in the East generally, Oriente toto, and especially 
among the Israelites themselves, there had prevailed an ancient 
and constant persuasion that by Divine appointment a Deliverer 
was to arise out of Judea, who should have dominion ; and, 
moreover, that he was impatiently expected in the reigns of the 
early emperors of Rome. Jews, who have lived since those 
times, have confessed that the period presignified is apparently 
past. Now, it is quite certain that the most remarkable and 
most influential religious teacher that ever lived in any nation 
upon earth did arise and live in Judea, at the time so marked 
and agreed on. It is undoubted that He declared the predictions 
in question to have pointed to Him. His followers have always 
claimed them as fulfilled in Him. Of all religious revolutions, 
nay, of all revolutions, moral, spiritual, social, or political, ever 
produced in the world, He has produced the greatest, the most 
influential, the most extensive. As Christians, we, of course, 
believe that He was the Christ ; and we are justified in urging 
on the Jews such considerations as the above, in proof that their 
own cherished Scriptures pointed to Him. 

Now, if the prophets really did centuries before foresee an 
event, most unlikely, but which we have witnessed as true, they 
must have had something more than the inspiration of genius, 
or than the exalting of their intuitional consciousness. For, 
whatever degree of insight into the truth of things spiritual we 
may attribute to such intuitional consciousness, and whatever 
communion it may give with the mind of God, it can hardly be 
said to make us partakers of God's omniscience, or to endue us 
with His powers of foresight. 

One of the favourite modes of evading such conclusions as 
this, and so one of the favourite positions of the low inspirationists 
is, that Nihil in scripto quod non prius in scriptore ; a man can 
speak nothing but what he thinks. In a sense this is true 
enough ; and, as a general rule, we may suppose the holy men 



312 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



of old, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, to 
have been first gifted with the knowledge of the future, and then 
moved to communicate that knowledge to others. But still, if 
there be an overruling and over-guiding Providence as well as an 
informing and inspiring Spirit, may not a man be guided to 
speak unconsciously words of deep import ? We see this in the 
Old Testament in the case of Balaam. If the history of him be 
not a false legend or a mere myth, the Almighty told him that 
he was to speak to Balak that word which was put into his 
mouth. His will was quite the other way. He willed to curse 
Israel, and so to obtain from Balak the wages of unrighteous- 
ness ; but his own will was overruled by the direct command of 
God. If Balaam prophesied, if he prophesied, as most Christians 
have believed, not only of the future fortunes of Israel, but of 
the future coming of Christ ; it is certain that his extraordinary 
knowledge could not have been the result of his purity of heart 
qualifying him to see God, could not have come from the clear- 
ing away of those clouds of sin, and therefore of error, which 
darken the mental vision ; for his heart was set upon covetous- 
ness, and he perished with the enemies of God. The same, or 
much the same, may be said of Caiaphas, who was altogether 
bent on evil, and yet of whom the Evangelist testifies that 
" being High Priest that year he prophesied.'-' If miracles are 
impossible, of course all this is impossible. But how miracles 
can be impossible, unless God is impossible, it seems that we 
have yet to learn. 

Though, therefore, we may not generally look for a work of 
the Spirit through the mere bodily organs of men, without an 
elevation of their souls ; we surely have no power to limit the 
operations of God, or to say that He may not, if He will, use the 
very unconscious words of wicked men as well as the heart ser- 
vice of pious men. 

19. But farther, is it not true that Almighty God has made even 
acts and histories to prophesy, independently of any utterance of 
men's mouths ? Are there not types in the Law, and through all 
the Old Testament history, w'hich have their antitypes in the 
Xew Testament ? There are those, no doubt, who will say that 
we can find historical parallels in profane, as readily as in sacred, 
history. But are these really to be compared with the sacrifice 
of Isaac typifying the death and resurrection of Christ — with the 



Essay YIL] 



INSPIRATION. 



313 



history of Joseph, sold by his brethren, and then exalted to be 
then- prince and saviour — with the brazen serpent, lifted up to 
heal all that looked on it — with the passage of the Eed Sea, and 
other parables put forth by the history of the Exodus — with the 
priesthood of Aaron, the passover, the ceremonies on the day of 
atonement, and the many Levitieal rites forepicturing Christ — 
with the kingly types, such as David and Solomon — with the 
prophetic parallelism of Elijah and John the Baptist — and the 
many others, too many to enumerate now ?* If there be, as the 
miters of the New Testament all assert, and as Christians have 
ever hitherto believed, a complete system of type and antitype 
in the Old and New Testament respectively ; to what can we 
attribute this, but to an overruling Hand guiding the fortunes of 
the chosen race, and of individuals in that race, and to the con- 
tinual presence of that Holy Spirit who divideth to every man 
severally as He will ? Is not all this to be esteemed a special 
inspiration ? And if all this is in the Old Testament, then, 
whatever human elements there be in it, there is surely such a 
Divine element as to make its books emphatically the " Oracles 
of God," to which we may look as unmistakably embodying His 
w ill and word. We may admit that the word of God so em- 
bodied in the Scriptures was designed to communicate to us 
great moral and spiritual truths, that there was no purpose to 
give any revelation of physical science or of mere general history. 
Yet if we have abundant evidence that Almighty God chose 
the prophets and the books of the Bible as channels for commu- 
nicating His will to mankind, we have surely abundant evidence 
that they would not be permitted to err in things pertaining to 
God. It may not be proof that their language will not be 
popular, and so possibly inaccurate, in matters of science, or that 
their statements will be infallible in the matter of a date or in 
other things immaterial ; but it is surely proof enough that they 



* Professor Jowett thinks we must [ Christianity. The Xew Testament has 

give up the types appealed to in the ! appealed to types of Christ in the Old 

Xew Testament, just as we do not press j Testament. The early Christians uni- 

the patristic appeal to the scarlet thread j versally acknowledged such types, but 

of Eahab, or the 318 followers of Abra- , perhaps unwisely found moreover cer- 

ham. That is to say, we must attach tain fanciful resemblances unknown to 

no more importance to the language of the Apostles and Evangelists. Because 

the Apostles, or of our blessed Lord the latter were fanciful, must we con- 

Himsebf, than to the language of any j elude that the former were false ? 

Christian writer in the earlier days of : 



314 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



would never be permitted to mislead us in questions of faith ; 
for otherwise they would bring us credentials to their faithful- 
ness from God Himself, and with these credentials in their 
hands, deceive, and mislead, and delude us. 

And here may we not see the fallacy of Coleridge's view, who 
accepts Scripture where it " finds " him, but not in its less inter- 
esting and merely historical records ? If we go on this principle, 
where are we to stop ? If we read the second book of Chronicles, 
perhaps we may discover very little which " finds " us ; whereas, if 
we read Baxter's ' Saint's Everlasting Best,' it may "find" us in 
nearly every page. To carry out Coleridge's principle, we ought 
to uncanonize, or reject the inspiration of, the book of Chronicles, 
and set up as canonical the book of Baxter. But, if our former 
arguments be correct, and the general belief of Christians in all 
ages be true, the whole historical record of the Old Testament is 
part of the great depository of God's revealed will. One part 
may be more important than another. But when we see that 
God spoke by words of man, and also by acts of man — that even 
actions were predictions — when we find Christ Himself and His 
Apostles citing the books of the Old Testament, as the " Scrip- 
tures," as the " Oracles of God," as " God-breathed" (Seoirvevara) 
— surely we have no right to say that one part " finds me " and 
another does not, and to settle our own Canon accordingly. The 
whole collection of the books of the Old Testament comes to us 
with Divine credentials — prophecies in it fulfilled after they 
were uttered — Christ's attestation to them, that they all testified 
of Him — St. Paul's testimony to them that they were " given by 
inspiration of God " — and, having such Divine credentials, we 
cannot suppose that any of these books would mislead us, at 
least in things heavenly. 

20. If all this holds of the Old Testament, it holds, a fortiori, 
of the New ; for probably no one will contend that the Apostles, 
with Christ's own mission, with the gift of tongues and miracu- 
lous powers, with the sjDecial promise of the Comforter and 
of guidance by Him into all truth, with the assurance of Christ's 
own presence, and with the command to preach on the house- 
tops what He had told them in the ear, — were in a worse posi- 
tion or more liable to error than the prophets of the Old 
Testament. And, though we may well believe that each in- 
dividual Apostle, like every Christian man, may have grown in 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION. 



315 



grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ ; yet this belief need in no wise interfere with our ac- 
knowledgment that messengers, specially accredited by God to 
man, would never be permitted to deliver a false message, or to 
mislead those whom they were so signally commissioned to lead.* 
For Mr. Maurice's question, as to whether we ought not to con- 
sider the inspiration of Holy Scripture like to that inspiration 
for which all of us pray, there seems but little difficulty 
in the reply. Undoubtedly, the inspiration for which we 
pray is the same as the inspiration of the writers of Scrip- 
ture — that is to say, it is the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit 
which guides not only into holiness, but also into truth. Pro- 
bably pious men in general never begin any work of im- 
portance without praying for grace and guidance ; but when they 
do so, they do not expect to be answered with, for instance, the 
gift of tongues. They ask for the word of wisdom or the word of 
knowledge, not for the working of miracles ; yet they look for 
it from one and the selfsame Spirit. And surely we may admit 
that that great Teacher of the Church may teach one in one way 
and another in another. It may be His will to give one a deep 
insight into spiritual mysteries, but yet not to give him a know- 
ledge of future events. To another, at a particular period of the 
Church or under a peculiar dispensation, He may give the 
power of prophecy, or the gift of tongues, or the working of 



* Revelation has all along been pro- 
gressive, but not on that account self- 
contradictory. Abel offered the first- 
lings of his flock ; Abraham offered a 
ram instead of his son; Moses insti- 
tuted the Paschal sacrifice ; John the 
Baptist pointed to " the Lamb of God, 
which taketh away the sin of the 
world " ; St. Paul spoke of " Christ our 
Passover " ; St. Peter of " the precious 
blood of Christ, as of a lamb without 
blemish and without spot." There is 
the same testimony here through a 
course of at least four thousand years ; 
but yet the knowledge was progressive. 
John the Baptist knew more of Christ 
than all that before him had been born 
of woman, but less than the least in 
the kingdom of the Saviour. What is 
true of the knowledge of the Church 
may be equally true of the knowledge 
of the Apostles. If they had not been 



capable of growth in wisdom, they 
would not have been human ; but no 
proof whatever has yet been given that 
the testimony of one Apostle is, on 
points of Christian doctrine, in conflict 
with the testimony of another, or that 
the more matured knowledge of any 
particular Apostle ever led him to con- 
tradict, in the least degree, his own 
former witness to the truth. Certainly 
they themselves always appeal to the 
consistency of their own teaching, and 
denounce all teaching which is incon- 
sistent with their own. " Though we 
or an angel from heaven preach any 
other Gospel unto you than that which 
we have preached unto you, let him be 
accursed." (Gal. i. 8.) " If there come 
any unto you, and bring not this doc- 
trine, receive him not into your house, 
neither bid him God speed." (2 John 
10.) 



316 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



miracles, or such guidance and direction as shall render his testi- 
mony, as to things heavenly, infallibly true. Are we to deny 
that God can do so ? Or again — is it impossible for Him to 
give such a knowledge except in the way of giving a higher 
degree of sanctification, purifying the soul from all that may 
darken the understanding, and so sharpening the spiritual in- 
sight? Such a view of things is surely in direct opposition 
to the constant record of the Bible. If it be true, it must convict 
the writers of the books of the Bible of false testimony. Is it 
not clearly set down that Balaam, that " the man of God, who 
was disobedient to the word of the Lord " — that Jonah, who fled 
from God's presence — that Caiaphas, even when compassing 
Christ's crucifixion — were all empowered to speak of future 
things, and some of them sorely against their wills ? Although 
it is most likely that God would in general use sanctified instru- 
ments to speak to man of sacred things, yet, if the record of the 
Bible be true, there may be a revelation to the mind, and 
so through the mouths of men, which is not the result of high 
sanctification, of purifying the heart that it may see God. A 
man may have " the gift of prophecy and understand all myste- 
ries and all knowledge," may "speak with the tongues of men 
and angels," and yet lack charity and be nothing. 

21. And so, to pass to another view of the question, Mr. Morell 
argues that the Divine or religious truth can only be revealed to 
our highest and deepest intuitional consciousness. It is not to 
be received by the senses, by the understanding, or by the 
reason, but deeper down still in our inmost being. There is no 
reason to quarrel with this statement so far as it goes. Its fault 
is, that it is one-sided. " When it pleased God to reveal His Son 
in " St. Paul, doubtless the revelation was not to the intellect 
only, but to the very heart of hearts. But there may be abun- 
dant head-knowledge without any such revelation to the soul 
and spirit. And must we not distinguish here between objective 
and subjective revelation ? Of course objective revelation must 
suppose a subject ; that is to say, if an object is to be revealed, 
there must be a subject by which that object may be embraced 
and conceived. But is it not plain to common sense, setting aside 
all logical subtlety, that there may be an outward manifesting 
(<f>avepa)<ris, if airo/caXv^fr^ be ambiguous) of God to man, with- 
out any inward reception of Him to the soul ? And if so, may 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION. 



317 



not a man be taught, as Daniel or St. John, by a vision of God, 
and yet, like Balaam or Jonah, not have his soul converted to 
God ? He may " see the vision of the Almighty, falling into a 
trance, and having his eyes open;" and yet his heart may 
not be opened to know and to love God. It really seems as if 
Mr. Maurice, Mr. Morell, and others of similar sentiments, 
deny the possibility of this.* But on what principle can it 
be denied, except on a principle which rejects all that is mira- 
culous, and which makes God, not a Personal Being, but an 
impersonal influence ? 

22. But if we believe that Gocl has in different ages authorised 
certain persons to communicate objective truth to mankind, if 
in the Old Testament history and the books of the prophets we 
find manifest indications of the Creator, it is then a secondary 
consideration, and a question on which we may safely agree to 
differ, whether or not every book of the Old Testament was 
written so completely under the dictation of God's Holy Spirit, 
that every word, not only doctrinal, but also historical or scien- 
tific, must be infallibly correct and true. The whole collec- 
tion of the books has been preserved providentially to the 
Church as the record of God's early dealings with mankind, and 
especially with one chosen race, as the collection of the prophe- 
cies and of the religious instruction which God was pleased to 
communicate to man in the preparatory dispensations of His 
grace : and with these there is a book of sacred psalmody, em- 
bodying the religious experience of men living under the The- 
ocracy, some at least of the hymns contained in it evincing the 
power of prophecy in their writers. Whatever conclusion, then, 
may be arrived at as to the infallibility of the writers on matters 
of science or of history, still the whole collection of the books 
will be really the oracles of God, the Scriptures of God, the 
record and depository of God's supernatural revelations in early 
times to man. And we may remember that our Blessed Lord 
quotes the Psalms as the Scripture, adding, " And the Scripture 
cannot be broken." 



* Of course, Professor Baden Powell 
must have held this impossible, because 
he held that there was no contact point 
between the spiritual and the physical 
worlds. They lie, according to him, 



in two distinct planes, which can never 
come in contact. But to what must 
such a theory lead short of Materialism 
and Atheism, in minds of the common 
stamp ? 



318 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



? [Essay VII. 



23. It has been already observed that what holds good of the 
Old Testament holds a fortiori of the New. If the writers 
of it were the accredited messengers from God to man, taught 
by Christ, assured by Him of the teaching of His Holy Spirit, 
sent to bring to man the knowledge of God and of His highest 
truths, we cannot doubt that that Spirit, who was to guide them 
into all truth, would never let them err in things pertaining to 
God. This is really what we want. We want to be assured 
that we have an infallible depository of religious truth. And if 
we are satisfied that the Apostles were accredited messengers 
for delivering God's message and communicating God's truth to 
the world, clearly we have this assurance. It may, no doubt, 
be true that all ministers of Christ in all ages are God's accre- 
dited messengers ; but the difference is this : the Apostles had 
new truths to deliver direct from heaven ; other ministers of 
Christ have old truths to impress — truths which may perhaps be 
new to their hearers, but which are old to the Church. In the 
one case there is a direct commission with a need of infallibility 
in things spiritual ; in the other the mission is through the in- 
tervention of others, and with the power of correcting errors by 
appealing to the authority of the written record. 

If we can establish this much, then there seems no need to fear 
the admission of a human element, as well as a Divine, in Scrip- 
ture. The Apostles had the treasure of the Gospel in earthen 
vessels. The Holy Spirit taught the Churches through the in- 
strumentality of men of like passions with ourselves. The diffi- 
culty of enunciating a definite theory of inspiration consists 
exactly in this — in assigning the due weight respectively to the 
Divine and the human elements. A human element there 
clearly was. Though in instances like those of Balaam and 
Caiaphas we seem to have something more like organic inspira- 
tion, yet in ordinary cases God was pleased to take the nobler 
instruments of man's thoughts and hearts through which to 
communicate a knowledge of Himself to the world, rather than 
to act through the organs of speech, moving men's mouths as 
mere machines. With all the pains and ingenuity which have 
been bestowed upon the subject, no charge of error, even in 
matters of human knowledge, has ever yet been substantiated 
against any of the writers of Scripture. But, even if it had been 
otherwise, is it not conceivable that there might have been 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIRATION. 



319 



infallible Divine teaching in all things spiritual and heavenly, 
whilst on mere matters of history, or of daily life, Prophets and 
Evangelists might have been suffered to write as men ? Even 
if this were true, we need not be perplexed or disquieted, 
so we can be agreed that the Divine element was ever such 
as to secure the infallible truth of Scripture in all things 
Divine. . 

24. All this, of course, is applicable to questions of physical 
science. Scripture was not given to teach us science, but to 
teach us religion ; it may not have been needful that the in- 
spired writers should have been rendered infallible in matters of 
science, nor is it at all likely that they should have been directed 
to teach to the ancient world truths which would anticipate the 
discoveries either of Newton or of Cuvier. It would have been 
almost as strange if they had not used popular expressions in 
writing on such subjects, as if they had written not in the 
tongue of their own people, but in a new dialect more refined 
and philosophical. But may we not ask, whether in this ques- 
tion of physical science, as in many like things, sceptical writers 
have not been sharp-sighted on minute discrepancies, whilst 
they have been blind to the great general harmony of truth ? 
It is ever so ; each petty difference of date, each little incon- 
sistency in two concurrent narratives, every, the slightest appear- 
ance of doubtful morality, anything like a supposed repugnance 
to what we consider the necessary attributes of the Most High, 
have been dwelt on and magnified, and used as objections to the 
inspiration of Holy Writ ; whilst the general truth of its history, 
the purity and holiness of its general moral teaching, the 
grandeur and sublimity of its doctrines concerning God, are 
altogether forgotten or concealed. Yet is it not true that, both 
in moral and in physical science, nothing short of miraculous 
inspiration can account for the superior knowledge of the writers 
of the Old Testament compared with the most enlightened sages 
of heathen antiquity ? The Jewish philosophers, like Philo, felt 
that the Scriptures of their own prophets had brought in simple 
language to their unlettered fellow-countrymen moral and 
spiritual truths, after which the Platonists had been " seeking, 
if haply they might feel after them and find them." Greeks, 
like Justin Martyr, who had tried one school of philosophy after 
another, discovered in the Gospel all that was most valuable in 



320 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VII. 



the teaching of all schools. And may not we, who have come 
upon an age of rapid discovery in physical science, confess that 
the account given of the Creator and His works in the Bible 
was an anticipation and is an epitome of all that has lately come 
to light ? The telescope has revealed to us worlds and systems 
of worlds rolling in unbroken order through infinity of space ; 
the microscope has shown us living and organised beings so small 
as to bewilder the mind with their minuteness as the suns and 
planets bewilder it with their vastness ; the geologist takes us 
back through countless ages, the records of which are indelibly 
engraven " as with lead in the rock for ever." And the Bible, 
but no other ancient book that is written, had told us that the 
Being who created all things was such that the Heaven and 
the Heaven of Heavens could not contain Him, that He was 
the High and lofty One inhabiting eternity, but that though He 
had His dwelling so high, yet He humbled Himself to behold the 
things that are in heaven and earth, that a sparrow did not fall 
without Him, that the very hairs of man's head were numbered 
by Him. Infinite greatness, infinite minuteness, infinity of 
duration, infinity of action, eternity of past existence and of past 
operation, as well as an eternity of the future, are all distinctly 
predicated in the Scriptures of the mind of Him who made us 
all. And here for the first time, now in the nineteenth century, 
we find the same infinity in heaven and in earth, and in the sea, 
and under the earth. 

Why, then, must we be puzzled because some recently dis- 
covered geological phenomena seem hard to reconcile with a 
few verses in one chapter of Genesis ? Are we to forget the 
marvellous harmony between God's word and His works, which a 
general view of both convinces us of, because there are some small 
fragments of both, which we have not yet learned to fit into each 
other ? Nay ! even here, we may fairly say, that the harmony 
already found is greater than the as yet unexplained discord. For, 
putting aside all doubtful interpretations and difficult questions 
concerning the six days of creation and the like, these two facts 
are certain ; all sound criticism and all geological inquiry prove 
them alike ; viz., first, that the original creation of the universe 
was at a period indefinitely, if not infinitely, distant from the 
present time ; and secondly, that of all animated beings, the last 
that came into existence was man. Geology has taught us both 



Essay VII.] 



INSPIKATION. 



321 



these facts ; but the first verse of Genesis clearly teaches the 
first, and the twenty-sixth verse teaches the second. 

To touch but for a moment on one other subject which has 
been so strongly pressed of late, the uniform prevalence of law, 
not only in things inanimate, but where there is life and even 
reason and morality, — can anything be more consistent than this 
with the whole of the Old Testament ? Indeed its peculiar 
teaching from first to last may be said to have been that God 
is a God of order ; that He has impressed His law on all creation ; 
that all things serve Him, all things obey Him ; that to break 
laws, whether moral or physical, is inevitably to entail suffering; 
and that even rational and spiritual beings, even in their 
rational and spiritual natures and capacities, are subject to laws 
which cannot be broken ; that the sins of the fathers go down m 
sin and sorrow to the children ; and that even repentance, though 
it may save the soul, cannot undo the sin or avert the suffering. 
There is nowhere in creation or in history written more plainly 
the record of order and law. 

25. Surely such thoughts as these seem fit to satisfy us, that 
God's works rightly read are not likely to contradict God's word 
rightly interpreted. There will be for a time, perhaps for all 
time, apparent difficulties. When new questions arise, at first 
many will feel that it is hopeless to attempt to solve them. 
Some will despair, some will try to smother inquiry ; some will 
rush into Atheism, and others will fall back into superstition. 
Patience is the proper temper for an age like our own, which is 
in many ways an age of transition. The discoveries of Galileo 
seemed more alarming to his contemporaries than any discoveries 
in geology or statistics can seem to us. We see no difficulty in 
Galileo's discoveries now. Such things, then, are probably the 
proper trials of our faith. Sober views, patience, prayer, a life 
of godliness, and a good conscience, will, no doubt, keep us from 
making shipwreck of faith. What now seems like a shadow 
may only be the proof that there is a light behind it And even 
if at times there should come shadows seeming like deep night, 
we may hope that the dawn of the morning is but the nearer. 



Y 



ESSAY VIII. 
THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



CONTENTS OF ESSAY VIII. 



PAGE 

The Essay is addressed to those 
who attach some preternatural 
efficacy to the Redeemer's suf- 
ferings for men, but propose to 
alter the terms in which it is 
usually conveyed 325 

I. — The Scripture doctrine . . 326 

1. In the three first Evan- 

gelists 326 

2. Especially the institution 

of the Last Supper . . . . 327 

3. In St. John's Gospel .. 328 

4. The Baptist 330 

5. The Apostolic teaching . . 331 

6. The Epistles in general . . 332 

7. Epistle of St. James . . 333 

8. Epistles of St. Peter . . 334 

9. Epistles of St. John . . . . 335 

10. Epistles of St. Paul . . . . 335 

11. Epistle to the Hebrews .. 336 

12. Harmony of Scripture upon 

the Atonement . . . . 337 

n.— 1. The doctrine of Church 

writers .. 339 



PAGE 



2. Atonement often implied 

in another doctrine, in 
controversies 340 

3. Wrong account by modern 

writers of patristic teach- 
ing 341 

4. Iremeus 342 

5. Athanasius 343 

6. Other writers .. .. 345 

7. Anselm 347 

8. How far original ..349 

9. "Sacrifice" and "Satis- 

faction" 350 

10. Defects of Anselm's sys- 

tem : ..35i 

11. Summary 352 

III. — 1. Modern repugnance to 

the doctrine 352 

2. Guilt caused by others 
and cured by another . . 352 

3. Sin revealed to us by its 
crowning act — the death 

of the Lord 355 

4. The wrath of God .. ..357 

5. Did Christ bear it ? . . . . 358 

6. Conclusion .. .. .. 363 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



Jesus, the Son of God, died on the Cross to redeem mankind 
from sin and death. This is the truth which for eighteen cen- 
turies has been preached to Jew and Gentile ; the truth which 
the Apostles took in their mouths when they went to teach 
Christianity to nations who had never heard of Christ before. 
The doctrine of Reconciliation has not escaped the fate of other 
Christian truths : it has done and is doing its work in converting 
the world, and consoling many a crushed heart ; but at the same 
time the terms in which it should be set forth have been disputed, 
and sometimes the doctrine itself denied. Recent writers have 
discussed the subject, avowing for the most part the wish to 
preserve the tenet itself ; but in some cases dealing so hardly 
with the evidence on which it rests, as to leave an impression that 
the doctrine of the Atonement is a modern invention, which can 
well be dispensed with in teaching Christianity ; and some even 
speak of it as a dishonour to God the Father, in that it repre- 
sents Him as accepting the sufferings of the innocent for the 
guilty. The present Essay is directed to those who profess to 
attach to the sufferings of the Redeemer some preternatural 
efficacy, beyond that of mere example, yet who would substitute 
for the received account of their effect some other doctrine. 
With those who utterly deny the doctrine of Atonement we have 
nothing here to do, except to wish them an increased conscious- 
ness of the need of a purgation from sin : for when Christ is 
needed, then, and not sooner, He will be found ; when man sees 
the serpent twining round his limbs, and feels serpent-poison 
beating in his blood, and sees over all his beauty and glory the ser- 
pent's defiling trail, he will look to the Son of Man lifted up, and 
be healed. But the promise that the doctrine shall in spirit be 
preserved, but heightened and spiritualised, has much attraction 
for the inquiring. In approaching them with the key of a 
profounder gnosis, men profess to give to the well-worn pages 



326 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



of the Bible the freshness and originality which is all they need. 
And the attempt in this Essay will be to show that the 
doctrine of the Atonement, although a mystery, is made known 
to us in the Bible in certain strong and definite touches which 
allow of no mistake ; that this doctrine has been, in fact, con- 
tinuously held and taught in the Church, altering from time to 
time in form, but in substance neither gaining anything nor 
losing anything ; and that the difficulties, which beset this as 
they do other mysteries, are not at all lightened by the remedies' 
proposed on behalf of human reason, but rather increased. 

I. Much has been made of the supposed silence of our Lord 
as to the atoning virtue of His death ; and it has even been 
hinted that in this respect the words of Jesus are at variance 
with those of His Apostles* If this were so, the question, 
would bear no discussion; and much else would fall to the; 
ground at the same time. The only proof of it which we are 
offered is, that Christ Himself " never uses the word sacrifice "f asi 
applied to His own life or death. But this is a purely artificial 
test. It remains still to inquire what the Lord does say of that 
death; for such is the copiousness of language, that an act 
which has the nature of a sacrifice may be described without 
the use of that particular word. When He speaks of "My 
blood of the new Covenant," no doubt the word sacrifice is 
dispensed with ; but there must be very few, we should hope, 
who cannot discern in such words the " sacrificial allusion." 

1. The three first Evangelists, as we know, agree in showing 
that Jesus unfolded His message to the disciples by degrees. 
He wrought the miracles that were to be the credentials of the 
Messiah ; He laid down the great principles of the Gospel 
morality until He had established in the minds of the Twelve 
the conviction that He was the Christ of God. Then as the 
clouds of doom grew darker, and the malice of the Jews became 
more intense, He turned a new page in His teaching. Drawing 
from His disciples the confession of their faith in Him as Christ, 
He then passed abruptly, so to speak, to the truth that 



* Professor Jowett on the Epistles, ii. 
556. " In [the words of Christ] is con- 
tained the inner life of mankind and of 
the Church ; there too the individual 
beholds, as in a glass, the image of a 
goodness which is not of this world. 



To ranlc their authority "below that of 
Apostles and Evangelists, is to give up 
the last hope of reuniting Christendom 
in itself, and of making Christianity an 
universal religion." 
t Ibid. 



Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



327 



remained to be learned in the last few months of His ministry, 
that His work included suffering as well as teaching.* He was in- 
stant in pressing this unpalatable doctrine home to His disciples, 
from this time to the end. Four occasions when He prophesied 
His bitter death are on record, and they are probably only ex- 
amples out of many more.f We grant that in none of these places 
does the word sacrifice occur ; and that the mode of speaking is 
somewhat obscure, as addressed to minds unprepared, even then, 
to bear the full weight of a doctrine so repugnant to their hopes. 
But that He must (Set) go and meet death ; that the powers of 
sin and of this world are let loose against Him for a time, so that 
He shall be betrayed to the Jews, rejected, delivered by them to 
the Gentiles, and by them mocked and scourged, crucified, and 
slain ; and that all this was done to achieve a foreseen work, and 
accomplish all things written of Him by the prophets — these 
we do certainly find. They invest the death of Jesus with a 
peculiar significance; they set the mind inquiring what the 
meaning can be of this hard necessity that is laid on Him. 
For the answer we look to other places; but at least there 
is here no contradiction to the doctrine of sacrifice, though the 
Lord does not yet say, " 1 bear the wrath of God against your 
sins in your stead ; I become a curse for you." Of the two sides of 
this mysterious doctrine, — that Jesus dies for us willingly, and 
that He dies to bear a doom laid on Him as of necessity, because 
some one must bear it, — it is the latter side that is made pro- 
minent. In all the passages it pleases Jesus to speak not of 
His desire to die, but of the burden laid on Him, and the power 
given to others against Him. 

2. Had the doctrine been explained no further, there would 
have been much to wait for. But the series of announcements 
in these passages leads up to one more definite and complete. 
It cannot be denied (we might almost say that before Mr. Jowett 
it never was denied) that the words of the institution of the 
Lord's Supper speak most distinctly of a sacrifice. " Drink ye 
all of this, for this is My blood of the new covenant/' or, to 
follow St. Luke, "the new covenant in My blood." We are 
carried back by these words to the first covenant, to the altar 
with twelve pillars, and the burnt-offerings and peace-offerings 



* Matt. xvi. 20, 21. 



| Mutt. xvi. 21. 



328 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



of oxen, and the blood of the victims sprinkled on the altar and 
on the people, and the words of Moses as he sprinkled it : " Be- 
hold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with 
you concerning all these words."* No interpreter has ever 
failed to draw from these passages the true meaning : " When 
My sacrifice is accomplished, My blood shall be the sanc- 
tion of the new covenant." The word sacrifice is wanting ; but 
sacrifice and nothing else is described. And the words are no 
mere figure used for illustration, and laid aside when they have 
served that turn, " Do this in remembrance of Me." They are 
the words in which the Church is to interpret the act of Jesus to 
the end of time. They are reproduced exactly by St. Paul.t 
Then, as now, Christians met together, and by a solemn act 
declared that they counted the blood of Jesus as a sacrifice 
wherein a new covenant was sealed ; and of the blood of that 
sacrifice they partook by faith, professing themselves thereby 
willing to enter the covenant and be sprinkled with the blood. 

3. So far we have examined the three " synoptic " Gospels. 
They follow a historical order. In the early chapters of all 
three the doctrine of our Lord's sacrifice is not found, because 
He will first answer the question about Himself, " Who is this ?" 
before he shows them " What is His work ? " But at length 
the announcement is made, enforced, repeated; until, when 
the feet of the betrayer are ready for their wicked errand, 
a command is given which secures that the death of Jesus shall 
be described for ever as a sacrifice and nothing else, sealing a 
new covenant, and carrying good to many. Lest the doctrine of 
Atonement should seem to be an afterthought, as indeed De 
Wette has tried to represent it, St. John preserves the conversa- 
tion with Nicodemus, which took place early in the ministry ; 
and there, under the figure of the brazen serpent lifted up, the 
atoning virtue of the Lord's death is fully set forth. " As Moses 
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of 
Man be lifted up ; that whosoever believeth in Him should not 
perish, but have eternal life." J As in this intercessory act, 
the image of the deadly, hateful, and accursed § reptile became 
by God's decree the means of health to all who looked on it 
earnestly, so does Jesus in the form of sinful man, of a deceiver 



* Exod. xxiv. f 1 Cor. xi. 25. X John iii. 14, 15. § Gen. iii. 14, 15. 



Essay VIIL] 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



329 



of the people,* of Antichrist, t of one accursedj become the 
means of our salvation; so that whoever fastens the earnest 
gaze of faith on Him shall not perish, but have eternal 
life. There is even a significance in the word "lifted up;" 
the Lord used probably the word vpi, which in older Hebrew 
meant to lift up in the widest sense, but began in the Aramaic 
to have the restricted meaning of lifting up for punishment. § 
With Christ the lifting up was a seeming disgrace, a 
true triumph and elevation. But the context in which 
these verses occur is as important as the verses themselves. 
Nicodemus comes as an inquirer ; he is told that man must be 
born again, and then he is directed to the death of Jesus as the 
means of that regeneration. The earnest gaze of the wounded 
soul is to be the condition of its cure ; and that gaze is to be 
turned not to Jesus on the mountain, or in the temple, but on 
the Cross. This, then, is no passing allusion, but it is the sub- 
stance of the Christian teaching addressed to an earnest seeker 
after truth. 

Another passage claims a reverent attention — " If any man eat 
of this bread he shall live for ever, and the bread that I will 
give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." || 
He is the bread ; and He will give the bread.lF If His presence 
on earth were the expected food, it was given already; but 
would He speak of " drinking His blood " (ver. 53), which can 
only refer to the dead ? It is on the Cross that He will afford 
this food to His disciples. We grant that this whole passage 
has occasioned as much disputing among Christian commentators 
as it did among the Jews who heard it ; and for the same 
reason, — for the hardness of the saying. But there stands the 
saying ; and no candid person can refuse to see a reference in it 
to the death of Him that speaks. 

In that discourse, which has well been called the Prayer of 
Consecration offered by our High Priest, there is another passage 



* Matt, xxvii. 63. 

f Matt. xii. 24; John xviii. 33. 

% Gal. iii. 13. 

§ So Tholuck and Knapp, ' Opuscula,' 
p. 217. The treatise of Knapp on this 
discourse is valuable throughout. 

|| John vi. 51. 

^ Some, omitting %v eyob datra, would 



read, " And my flesh is the bread that I 
will give for the life of the world." So 
Tertullian seems to have read " Panis 
quern ego dedero pro salute mundi caro 
mea est." The sense is the same with 
the omission ; but the received reading 
may be successfully defended. 



330 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



which cannot be alleged as evidence to one who thinks that any 
word applied by Jesus to His disciples and Himself must bear 
in both cases precisely the same sense, but which is really per- 
tinent to this inquiry : — " Sanctify them through Thy truth : Thy 
word is truth. As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so 
have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I 
sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the 
truth."* The word dyid^ecv, " sanctify," " consecrate," is used in 
the Septuagint for the offering of sacrifice,! and for the dedication 
of a man to the Divine service.^ Here the present tense, " I conse- 
crate," used in a discourse in which our Lord says He is " no more 
in the world," is conclusive against the interpretation " I dedicate 
My life to thee ;" for life is over. jSo self-dedication, except that 
by death, can now be spoken of as present. " I dedicate Myself 
to Thee, in My death, that these may be a people consecrated to 
Thee ;" such is the great thought in this sublime passage, which 
suits well with His other declaration, that the blood of His sacri- 
fice sprinkles them for a new covenant with God. To the great 
majority of expositors from Chiysostom and Cyril,' the doctrine 
of reconciliation through the death of Jesus is asserted in these 
verses. 

The Eedeemer has already described Himself as the Good 
Shepherd who la}*s down His life for the sheep, § taking care to 
distinguish His death from that of one who dies against his 
will in striving to compass some other aim : " Therefore doth 
my Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might 
take it again. Xo man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down 
of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to 
take it again." 

Other passages that relate to His death will occur to the 
memory of any Bible reader. The corn of wheat that dies in the 
ground to bear much fruit. || is explained by His own words 
elsewhere, where He says that He came " to minister, and to 
give His life a ransom for many." H 

4. Thus, then, speaks Jesus of Himself. "What say His witnesses 
of Him ? " Behold the Lamb of God," says the Baptist, " which 
taketh away the sin of the world/'** Commentators differ about 



* John xviii. 17-19. t Levit. xxii. 2. % Numb. iii. 15. 

§ John x. 11, 17, IS. || John x. 24. % Matt. xx. 28. ** Johu i. 29. 



Essay VIII. ] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 331 



the allusion implied in that name. But take any one of their 
opinions, and a sacrifice is implied. Is it the Paschal lamb 
that is referred to? — Is it the lamb of the daily sacrifice? 
Either way the death of the victim is brought before us. But 
the allusion in all probability is to the well-known prophecy 
of Isaiah (liii.), to the Lamb brought to the slaughter, who 
bore our griefs and carried our sorrows.* 

5. The Apostles after the Kesurrection preach no moral system, 
but a belief in and love of Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, 
through whom, if they repent, men shall obtain salvation. This 
was Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost ;t and he appealed 
boldly to the Prophets on the ground of an expectation of a 
suffering Messiah.^ Philip traced out for the Eunuch, in that 
picture of suffering holiness in the well-known chapter of 
Isaiah, the lineaments of Jesus of Nazareth.§ The first sermon 
to a Gentile household proclaimed Christ slain and risen, and 
added "that through His name whosoever believeth in Him 
shall receive remission of sins."|| Paul at Antioch preaches "a 
Saviour Jesus " through this Man is preached unto you the 
forgiveness of sins, and by Him all that believe are justified from 
all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of 
Moses.''** At Thessalonica all that we learn of this Apostle's 
preaching is " that Christ must needs have suffered and risen 
again from the dead ; and this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, 
is Christ." ft Before Agrippa he declared that he had preached 
always " that Christ should suffer, and that He should be the 
first that should rise from the dead and it was this declara- 
tion that convinced his royal hearer that he was a crazed 
fanatic. The account of the first founding of the Church in the 
Acts of the Apostles is concise and fragmentary ; and sometimes 
we have, hardly any means of judging what place the sufferings 



* See this passage discussed fully in 
the notes of Meyer, Lange (Bibelwerlte), 
and Alford. The reference to the Pas- 
chal Lamb finds favour with Grotius 
and others ; the reference to Isaiah is 
approved by Chrysostom and many 
others. The taking away of sin (ctLpeiv) 
of the Baptist, and the bearing it 
(tyepeii/, Sept.) of Isaiah, have one mean- 
ing, and answer to the Hebrew word 



n'KO. To take the sins on himself is to 
remove them from the sinners ; and how 
can this be through his death except in 
the way of expiation by that death 
itself? 

f Acts h. X Acts hi. 18. 

§ Acts viii. ; Isai. liii. 
|| Acts x. If Acts xiii. 23. 

** Acts xiii. 38, 39. ft Acts xvii. 3. 
XX Acts xxvi. 23. 



332 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



of Jesus held in the teaching of the Apostles ; but when we read 
that they " preached Jesus," or the like, it is only fair to infer 
from other passages that the Cross of Christ was never concealed, 
whether Jews, or Greeks, or barbarians were the listeners. And 
this very pertinacity shows how much weight they attached to 
the facts of the life of our Lord. They did not merely repeat 
in each new place the pure morality of Jesus as He uttered it in 
the Sermon on the Mount : of such lessons we have no record. 
They took in their hands, as the strongest weapon, the fact that 
a certain Jew crucified afar off in Jerusalem was the Son of 
God, who had died to save men from their sins; and they 
offered to all alike an interest, through faith, in the resurrection 
from the dead of this outcast of His own people. No wonder 
that Jews and Greeks, judging in their worldly way, thought 
this strain of preaching came of folly or madness, and turned 
from what they thought unmeaning jargon. 

6. We are able to complete from the Epistles our account of the 
teaching of the Apostles on the Doctrine of Atonement. " The 
Man Christ Jesus " is the mediator between God and man, for 
in Him the human nature in its sinless purity is lifted up to the 
Divine, so that He, exempt from guilt, can plead for the guilty* 
Thus He is the second Adam that shall redeem the sin of the 
first ; the interests of men are bound up in Him, since He has 
power to take them all into Himself. | This salvation was pro- 
vided by the Father, to "reconcile us to Himself;"! to whom 
the name of " Saviour " thus belongs ; § and our redemption is a 
signal proof of the love of God to us.|| Not less is it a proof of 
the love of Jesus, since He freely lays down His life for us — 
offers it as a precious gift, capable of purchasing all the lost.lf 
But there is another side of the truth more painful to our 
natural reason. How came this exhibition of Divine love to be 
needed ? Because wrath had already gone out against man. 
The clouds of God's anger gathered thick over the whole human 
race; they discharged themselves on Jesus only. God has 
made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin ;** He is made " a 
curse " (a thing accursed) for us, that the curse that hangs over 



* 1 Tim. ii. 5 ; 1 John ii. 1, 2 ; Heb. 
vii. 25. 

t Eph. v. 29, 30 ; Eom. xii. 5 ; 1 Cor. 
xv. 22 ; Kom. v. 12, 17. 



I % 2 Cor. v. 18. 

§ Luke i. 47. || 1 John iv. 10. 

f 1 Tim. ii. 6 ; Tit. ii. 14 ; Eph. i. 7. 
I Compare Matt. xx. 28. ** 2 Cor. v. 21. 



Essay VIII.] 



THE DEATH OF CHKIST. 



333 



us may be removed :* He bore our sins in His own body on the 
tree.f There are those who would see on the page of the Bible 
only the sunshine of the Divine love ; but the muttering thun- 
ders of Divine wrath against sin are heard there also ; and He 
who alone was no child of wrath, meets the shock of the 
thunderstorm, becomes a curse for us, and a vessel of wrath ; and 
the rays of love break out of that thunder-gloom and shine on 
the bowed head of Him who hangs on the Cross, dead for our 
sins. 

We have spoken, and advisedly, as if the New Testament 
were, as to this doctrine, one book in harmony with itself. That 
there are in the New Testament different types of the one true 
doctrine, may be admitted without peril to the doctrine. The 
principal types are four in number. 

7. In the Epistle of James there is a remarkable absence of all 
explanations of the doctrine of the Atonement. But this ad- 
mission does not amount to so much as may at first appear. 
True, the key-note of the Epistle is that the Gospel is the Law 
made perfect, and that it is a practical moral system, in which 
man finds himself free to keep the Divine law. But with him 
Christ is no mere lawgiver appointed to impart the Jewish system. 
He knows that Elias is a man like himself; but of the Person of 
Christ he speaks in a different spirit. He calls himself " a ser- 
vant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ," who is " the Lord of 
Glory." He speaks of the Word of Truth, of which Jesus 
has been the utterer. He knows that faith in the Lord of Glory 
is inconsistent with time-serving and " respect of persons." J 
"There is one lawgiver," he says, "who is able to save and to 
destroy ; " § and this refers no doubt to Jesus, whose second 
coming he holds up as a motive to obedience. || These and like 
expressions remove this Epistle far out of the sphere of Ebioni- 
tish teaching. The inspired writer sees the Saviour, in the 
Fathers glory, preparing to return to judge the quick and dead. 
He puts forth Christ as Prophet and King, for he makes Him 
teacher and judge of the world ; but the office of the Priest he 
does not dwell on. Far be it from us to say that he knows it 
not. Something must have taken place before he could treat 



Gal. iii. 13. f 1 Pet. ii. 24. 

§ James iv. 12. 



% James i. 1, ii. 1, i. 18. 
|| James v. 7-9. 



334 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



them with confidence, as free creatures, able to resist tempta- 
tions, and even to meet temptations with joy. He treats " your 
faith " as something founded already, not to be prepared by this 
epistle.* His purpose is a purely practical one. There is no 
intention to unfold a Christology, such as that which makes the 
Epistle to the Komans so valuable. Assuming that Jesus has 
manifested Himself, and begotten anew the human race, he 
seeks to make them pray with undivided hearts, and be consi- 
derate to the poor, and strive with lusts, for which they and 
not God are responsible ; and bridle their tongues, and show 
their fruits by their works.f 

8. In the teaching of St. Peter the doctrine of the Person of our 
Lord is connected strictly with that of His work as Saviour and 
Messiah. The frequent mention of His sufferings shows the pro- 
minent place he would give them ; and he puts forward as the 
ground of his own right to teach, that he was " a witness of the 
sufferings of Christ." J The atoning virtue of those sufferings he 
dwells on with peculiar emphasis ; and not less so on the 
purifying influence of the Atonement on the hearts of believers. 
He repeats again and again that Christ died for us ; § that He 
bare our sins in His own body on the tree. || He bare them ; 
and what does this phrase suggest, but the goat that " shall 
bear " the iniquities of the people off into the land that was not 
inhabited ? TT or else the feeling the consequences of sin, as the 
word is used elsewhere ?** We have to choose between the 
cognate ideas of sacrifice and substitution. ( losely connected 
with these statements are those which connect moral refor- 
mation with the death of Jesus. He bare our sins that we 
might live unto righteousness. His death is our life. We are 
not to be content with a self-satisfied contemplation of our 
redeemed state, but to live a life worthy of it.f f In these 
passages the whole Gospel is contained ; we are justified by the 
death of Jesus, who bore our sins that we might be sanctified 
and renewed to a life of godliness. And from this Apostle we 



* James i. 2, 3, 21. 

f See Neander, ' Pflanzung,' b. vi. c. 
3 ; Scbmid, ' Theologie der N. T.,' part 
ii. ; and Dorner, * Christologie,' vol. i. p. 
95. % 1 Pet. v. 1. 

§ 1 Pet. ii. 21, iii. 18, iv. 1. 

I 1 Pet. ii. 24. If there were any 



doubt tbat "for us" (y-n-ep rifi&v) means 
" in our stead" (see verse 21), this 24th 
verse, which explains the former, would 
set it at rest. 

H Lev. xvi. 22. 

** Lev. xx. 17, 19. 

ft 1 Pet. ii. 21-25, iii. 15-18. 



Essay VIII.] 



THE DEATH OF CHEIST. 



335 



hear again the name of " the Lamb," as well as from John the 
Baptist ; and the passage of Isaiah comes back upon us with 
unmistakeable clearness. We are redeemed " with the precious 
blood of Christ as of a lamb without, blemish and without spot."* 
Every word carries us back to the Old Testament and its sacri- 
ficial system : the spotless victim, the release from sin by its 
blood (elsewhere, i. 2, by the sprinkling of its blood), are here ; 
not the type and shadow but the truth of them; not a cere- 
monial purgation but an effectual reconcilement of man and 
God. 

9. In the inspired writings of John we are struck at once with 
the emphatic statements as to the Divine and human natures of 
Christ. A right belief in the incarnation is the test of a 
Christian man ;f we must believe that Jesus Christ is come in 
the flesh, and that He is manifested to destroy the works of the 
devil. \ And, on the other hand, He who has come in the flesh 
is the One who alone has been in the bosom of the Father, seen 
the things that human eyes have never seen, and has come to 
declare them unto us.§ This Person, at once divine and human, 
is se the propitiation for our sins," our " advocate with the 
Father," sent into the world "that we might live through him;" 
and the means was His laying down His life for us, which should 
make us ready to lay down our lives for the brethren. || And 
the moral effect of His redemption is, that " the blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanseth us from all sin." IT The intimate connection 
between His work and our holiness is the main subject of his 
first Epistle : " Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin."** 
As with St. Peter so with St. J ohn, every point of the doctrine 
of the Atonement comes out with abundant clearness. The 
substitution of another who can bear our sins, for us who cannot ; 
the sufferings and death as the means of our redemption, our 
justification thereby, and our progress in holiness as the result 
of our justification. 

10. To follow out as fully in the more voluminous writings of 
St. Paul the passages that speak of our salvation would far trans- 
gress the limits of our space. Man, according to this Apostle, 



* 1 Pet. i. 18, 19, with Isaiah liii. 7. II 1 John ii. 1, 2, iv. 9, 10, v. 11-13, 

f 1 John iv. 2 ; John i. 14 ; 2 John 7. hi. 16, v. 6, i. 7 ; John xi. 51. 
% 1 John iii. 8. t 1 John i. 7. 

§ 1 John i. 2, iv. 14 ; Jchn i. 14-18. I ** 1 John iii. 9. 



336 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay YIII. 



is a transgressor of the law. His conscience tells hirn that he 
cannot act up to that law which, the same conscience admits, 
is divine, and binding upon him. Through the old dispensations 
man remained in this condition. Even the law of Moses could 
not justify him : it only by its strict behests held up a mirror to 
conscience that its frailness might be seen. Christ came, sent 
by the mercy of our Father who had never forgotten us ; given 
to, not deserved by us. He came to reconcile men and God, by 
dying on the Cross for them and bearing their punishment in 
their stead * He is " a propitiation through faith in his blood :"t 
words which most people will find unintelligible except in 
reference to the Old Testament and its sacrifices. He is the 
ransom, or price paid, for the redemption of man from all 
iniquity .J The wrath of God was against man ; but it did not 
fall on man. God made His Son " to be sin for us " though He 
knew no sin ; and Jesus suffered though men had sinned. By 
this act God and man were reconciled. § On the side of man 
trust and love and hope take the place of fear and of an evil 
conscience ; on the side of God, that terrible wrath of His, which 
is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous- 
ness of men, is turned away. || The question whether we are 
reconciled to God only, or God is also reconciled to us, might 
be discussed on deep metaphysical grounds ; but we purposely 
leave that on one side at present, content to show that at all 
events the intention of God to punish man is averted by this 
" propitiation" and "reconcilement." 

11. Different views are held about the authorship of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, by modern critics. But its numerous points of 
contact with the other Epistles of St. Paul must be recognized. 
In both the incompleteness of Judaism is dwelt on ; redemption 
from sin and guilt is what religion has to do for men, and this 
the law failed to secure. In both, reconciliation and forgiveness 
and a new moral power in the believers are the fruits of the 
work of Jesus. In the Epistle to the Eomans, Paul shows that 



* 2 Cor. v. 14-21 ; Eom. v. 6-8. These 
two passages are decisive as to the fact 
of substitution ; they might be fortified 
with many others. 

f Rom. iii. 25, 26. Compare Levit. 
xvi. 15. '\\o.(TT''()piov means "victim for 
expiation." 



% Titus ii. 14. Still stronger in 1 
Tim. ii. 6, "ransom instead of" {avrl- 
Xvrpov ). Also Eph. i. 7 (awoAvrpuais) ; 
1 Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23. 

§ Rom. v. 10 ; 2 Cor. v. 18-20 ; Eph. 
ii. 16 ; Col. i. 21. 

|| Rom. i. 18, v. 9 ; 1 Thes. i. 10. 



Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 337 



the Law failed to justify ; and that faith in the blood of Jesus 
must be the ground of justification. In the Epistle to the 
Hebrews the same result follows from an argument rather 
different: all that the Jewish system aimed to do is accom- 
plished in Christ in a far more perfect manner. The Gospel 
has a better Priest, more effectual sacrifices, a more profound 
peace. In the one Epistle the Law seems set aside wholly for 
the system of faith ; in the other the Law is exalted and glorified 
in its Gospel shape. But the aim is precisely the same, to 
show the weakness of the Law and the effectual fruit of the 
Gospel. 

12. We are now in a position to see how far the teaching of the 
New Testament on the effects of the death of Jesus is continuous 
and consistent. Are the declarations of our Lord about Himself 
the same as those of James and Peter, John and Paul ? and are 
those of the Apostles consistent with each other ? The several 
points of this mysterious transaction may be thus roughly 
described : — 

1. God sent His Son into the world to redeem lost and ruined 
man from sin and death, and the Son willingly took upon Him 
the form of a servant for this purpose ; and thus the Father and 
the Son manifested their love for us. 

2. God the Father laid upon His Son the weight of the sins 
of the whole world, so that He bare in His own body the wrath 
which men must else have borne, because there was no other 
way of escape for them ; and thus the Atonement was a mani- 
festation of Divine justice. 

3. The effect of the Atonement thus wrought is, that man is 
placed in a new position, freed from the dominion of sin, and 
able to follow holiness ; and thus the doctrine of the Atonement 
ought to work in all the hearers a sense of love, of obedience, 
and of self-sacrifice. 

In shorter words, the sacrifice of the death of Christ is a proof 
of Divine love, and of Divine justice, and is for us a document of 
obedience. 

Of the four great writers of the New Testament, Peter, Paul, 
and John set forth every one of these points. Peter, the 
"witness of the sufferings of Christ," tells us that we are 
redeemed with the blood of Jesus, as of a lamb without 
blemish and without spot; says that Christ bare our sins in 



338 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



His own body on the tree. If we "have tasted that the 
Lord is gracious,"* we must not rest satisfied with a con- 
templation of our redeemed state, but must live a life worthy of 
it. JSTo one can well doubt, who reads the two Epistles, that 
the love of God and Christ, and the justice of God, and the 
duties thereby laid on us, all have their value in them ; but the 
love is less dwelt on than the justice, whilst the most prominent 
idea of all is the moral and practical working of the Cross of 
Christ upon the lives of men. 

With St. John, again, all three points find place. That Jesus 
willingly laid down His life for us, and is an advocate with the 
Father ; that He is also the propitiation, the suffering sacrifice, 
for our sins ; and that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us 
from all sin, for that whoever is born of God doth not commit 
sin ; all are put forward. The death of Christ is both justice 
and love, both a propitiation and an act of loving self-surrender ; 
but the moral effect upon us is more prominent even than 
these. 

In the Epistles of Paul the three elements are all present. In 
such expressions as a ransom, a propitiation, who was " made sin 
for us," the wrath of God against sin, and the mode in which it 
was turned away, are presented to us. Yet not wrath alone. 
" The love of Christ constraineth us ; because we thus judge, that 
if one died for all, then were all dead : and that He died for all, 
that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, 
but unto Him which died for them, and rose again."-)* Love in 
Him begets love in us, and in our reconciled state the holiness 
which we could not practise before becomes easy. 

The reasons for not finding from St. James similar evidence, 
we have spoken of already. 

Now in which of these points is there the semblance of con- 
tradiction between the Apostles and their Master ? In none of 
them. In the Gospels, as in the Epistles, Jesus is held up as 
the sacrifice and victim, quaffing a cup from which His human 
nature shrank, feeling in Him a sense of desolation such as we 
fail utterly to comprehend on a theory of human motives. Yet no 
one takes from Him His precious redeeming life ; He lays it down 
of Himself, out of His great love for men. But men are to deny 



* 1 Pet. ii. 3. |2 Gor. v. 14, 15. 



Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



339 



themselves, and take up their cross and tread in His steps. They 
are His friends only if they keep His commands and follow His 
footsteps. 

II. We must consider it proved that these three points or 
moments are the doctrine of the whole New Testament. What 
is there about this teaching that has provoked in times past and 
present so much disputation ? Not, I am persuaded, the hardness 
of the doctrine, — for none of the theories put in its place are 
any easier, — but its want of logical completeness. Sketched out 
for us in a few broad lines, it tempts the fancy to fill it in and 
lend it colour ; and we do not always remember that the hands 
that attempt this are trying to make a mystery into a theory , an 
infinite truth into a finite one, and to reduce the great things of 
God into the narrow limits of our little field of view. To whom 
was the ransom paid ? What was Satan's share of the trans- 
action? How can one suffer for another? How could the 
Kedeemer be miserable' when He was conscious that His work 
was one which could bring happiness to the whole human race ? 
Yet this condition of indefiniteness is one which is imposed 
on us in the reception of every mystery : prayer, the incarnation, 
the immortality of the soul, are all subjects that pass far beyond 
our range of thought. And here we see the wisdom of God in 
connecting so closely our redemption with our reformation. If 
the object were to give ' us a complete theory of salvation, no 
doubt there would be in the Bible much to seek. The theory is 
gathered by fragments out of many an exhortation and warning ; 
nowhere does it stand out entire, and without logical flaw. But 
if we assume that the New Testament is written for the guidance 
of sinful hearts, we find a wonderful aptness for that particular 
end. Jesus is proclaimed as the solace of our fears, as the 
founder of our moral life, as the restorer of our lost relation with 
our Father. If He had a cross, there is a cross for us ; if He 
pleased not Himself, let us deny ourselves ; if He suffered for sin, 
let us hate sin.* And the question, ought not to be, What do all 



* Pages might be filled with examples 
of this, and yet Mr. Garden (' Tracts for 
Priests and People,' iii. p. 4) starts 
back from one of them as Crusoe did 
from the footprint in the sand. " In 1 Pet. 
i. 18, we have an impressive sentence, 
which we read on in our habitual key 
of thought, but are surprised to find 



that it does not end on the key-note : — 
' Forasmuch as ye know that ye were 
not redeemed with corruptible things, 
as silver and gold, from [it is here that 
modern ears and thoughts will^ antici- 
pate a different ending] your vain con- 
versation received by tradition from your 
fathers.' " This is the usual key-note of 

z 2 



340 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



these mysteries mean ? but, Are these thoughts really such as will 
serve to guide our life and to assuage our terrors in the hour of 
death ? The answer is twofold — one from history and one from 
experience. The preaching of the Cross of the Lord even in this 
simple fashion converted the world. The same doctrine is now the 
ground of any definite hope that we find in ourselves, of forgive- 
ness of sins and of everlasting life. 

Now, in examining the history of the Doctrine we shall 
expect to find, as in the case of other doctrines, that attempts 
have been made to force from Scripture a clearer and more de- 
finite statement than is found there at first sight. We should 
also expect that these attempts at greater precision had been 
accompanied often, if not always, with the loss of some element 
on which the Bible insists. 

But we are told at the outset that the position which this 
doctrine holds in the history of early controversies is far from 
being so prominent as that which we assign it now. The answer 
is, that in the first ages the disputes which prevailed about the 
Person of Jesus superseded the discussion of the Atonement, 
because they contained and implied it. More than once, when 
the ostensible argument was the nature of the Redeemer, Atha- 
nasius insisted that if the Son of God had been such a one as 
Arians and Sabellians dreamed of, He could not have redeemed 
the world. How could a man who w r as only one among other 
men have power to redeem them all ? It needed the Son of 
God, who had power over all men, to redeem them.* And 
Arians, conscious of this, rested the redemption of men, not on 
any power inherent in the Saviour's nature, but on the simple 
declaration of God that the curse was removed, t Cyril 
objects to Nestorius that his doctrine makes the Atonement 
meaningless, for it refers it, not to one who is God and man, 
but to a man, whose relation to God the Word is only ex- 
ternal.^; When the whole doctrine of the Person of Christ 
was the subject of searching controversy, the doctrine of Atone- 
ment did not emerge as the subject of a separate dispute ; but 
we may be sure that it was never far off. And it may be that 



Scripture, bat not the only note. The 
same Epistle speaks of redemption from 
wrath and eternal death (1 Pet. i. 5, ii. 
10, iv. 17, 18;. 



* Cont. Arian. i. § 49. Comp. i. 
§§ 19, 37, ii. § 14, 20. 
f Cont. Arian. ii. § 68. 
X Adv. Nestorius, iii. 2. 



Essay VIII.] 



THE DEATH OF CHEIST. 



311 



this is the clue to our present discussions about the Atonement. 
As of old it was involved in another controversy, so now the 
subject of that other controversy is involved in tins ; and when 
we are invited to discuss whether one man can ever bear the 
sins of another, and whether vicarious punishment could ever be 
agreeable to God's justice, we cannot but notice that the divine 
nature of Christ is never strongly asserted on that side, or 
assumed as an element in the argument. The death of Jesus 
is discussed as the death of a mere man. The most incautious 
rhetorical flights of orthodox sermons are selected for assault, in 
which a substitution of the innocent for the guilty is spoken of 
under the forms and phrases of human law, in the very points 
where human law is not applicable ; and the more deliberate 
expositions of faith are put on one side. We are accused of 
making that the corner-stone of the Christian faith which 
no creed fully defines. The necessity of our position compels 
us to make the Atonement prominent. But all the faith is 
involved in the discussion. When the views of Socinus on the 
Atonement are brought forth again, his notions as to the Ke- 
deemer's person are probably not far off. 

In modern writers who have touched the subject, an undue 
prominence is given to one feature of the patristic teacliing, the 
notion that the ransom paid by our Lord was paid to the Devil, 
into whose power man had passed through sin.* Thus what is 
for the most part rhetorical playing with words, is put forward 
as if it were the sole and the serious belief of these writers. 
The story bears a very different telling. There is not space for it 
here ; but a few quotations may be useful. The old Epistle to 
Diognetus f tells how God gave His Son a ransom for us ; and 
we are to rejoice that the Holy One died for the evil doers, 
the sinless for the sinful ; for what was there, short of His right- 
eousness, that would cover our sins ? Clement of Eome J sees the 
truth not less clearly. According to Ignatius, § we owe our 
salvation to Christ crucified for us in the flesh, and to His " God- 
blessed passion." To the Jewish objection that the cross is 
accursed, and therefore unworthy of Messiah, Justin Martyr 

* Professor Jowett, ii. 572. Mr. Gar- if there were no other opinions worth 

den (p. 4) devotes seventeen lines to mentioning, 

the subject of the Fathers, and this f Oh. ix. J Ch. 1. 

theory occupies the whole of them ; as § Ad Smyrn., ch. i. 



342 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



retorts that tliis is matter for those to be ashamed of who 
inflicted the death, when the Father of all had " willed that His 
Christ should take the curses of all for the whole race of man, 
knowing that He would raise Him up after He had been cruci- 
fied and put to death." * By Irenaaus the Scriptural accounts 
of the Redemption are prominently put forward. As a man 
caused the fall, a man must cause the restoration ; he must be a 
man able to sum up (recapitulare) all the human species in 
himself, so as to bear the punishment of all, and to render an 
obedience that will compensate for their innumerable acts of 
disobedience. It suits not with the Divine nature to effect His 
will by force, but rather by love and influence ; hence came the 
voluntary self-sacrifice, out of exceeding love, of the divine Son 
of Man, who is truly God and man ; and hence too men are 
not dragged, but drawn back to God from sin, embracing by an 
act of their will the offers of mercy made them through Christ. 
But, combined with these statements, there are indications at 
least of the idea that Christ died . to redeem men from a real 
objective power which Satan had acquired over them, so that the 
redeeming price was paid, not so much by way of debt due to the 
righteousness and justice of God, as by way of ransom to release 
them from a conqueror, and to restore them to God, to whom they 
originally belonged. " Since," says he, " the apostasy [the Devil] 
unjustly got the dominion over us, and, though we belonged by 
nature to the omnipotent God, alienated us against nature and 
made us his own disciples, the Word of God [Christ], powerful 
in all things and perfect in justice, acted justly in regard to the 
apostasy [the Devil], redeeming from it that which was His own ; 
not by force in the way that it got dominion over us in the 
beginning, when it carried off insatiably that which belonged 
not to it, but by persuasion (secundum suadelam),- as it became 
God to receive what He would, by the use of persuasion, not of 
force, that justice should not be infringed, nor yet that which 
God created of old should perish." j Some have supposed that 
the words " by persuasion " mean by a way which the Devil 
himself must be convinced was right and reasonable, but this 
would be strangely inconsistent with the general .views of the 
writer. The apostate spirit, as he says in another place, per- 



* Dial. Tryph., § 95. 



t Ady. Haer., v. i. 1. 



Essay VIII.] 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



343 



suaded men to transgress, but lie used fraud and wrong to com- 
pass his purpose; and here Irenseus contrasts with this false 
persuasion, which he calls force and injustice, the fair and just 
persuasion by which the Son of Man who has been lifted up 
draws all men back to Him. The persuasion is addressed to lost 
men, and not to Satan. With Irenseus the redemption was not 
a friendly treaty between two powers for the release of pri- 
soners ; he says that Christ contended with, repulsed, conquered, 
despoiled, and bound the enemy of God and man. The point 
on which he lays most stress is certainly not the power which 
Satan has acquired, but the power that belongs inherently to 
our Redeemer of summing up in Himself the interests of the 
whole human race. He sees that to offer a sacrifice for all 
mankind is a privilege that can belong only to man on one side, 
for man's fault is in question ; only to the Divine Son of God on 
the other, for only He can control the destinies of all men. If 
the " persuasion " has been rightly referred to man, and not to 
Satan (and Dorner seems to have clearly established it *), then 
Irenseus goes very little beyond Holy Scripture in his attempt to 
explain the mystery of the power of the Evil One ever us. In 
both we are to be redeemed from Satan and from death, in both 
the offering of One whose power over the human race is unli- 
mited shall procure deliverance. The doctrine of the Atonement 
is knit up with that of the Incarnation ; and he does not ask 
whether one man can suffer for another, but what manner of 
person He must be whose sufferings can have power over all 
others to save them. 

The doctrine of Athanasius will furnish another sample of 
patristic teaching. Man fell through sin, says this great teacher ; 
and the righteousness of God was thus brought into conflict 
with His goodness. According to His righteousness and truth, He 
who has given the law must inflict the allotted punishment on 
those who break it : but then His goodness could not suffer 
that man, made in His own image, should perish through the 
deceit of the Devil and his angels. It were better he had not 
heen created. How shall this contradiction be solved? By 
man's repentance ? Simple repentance would be insufficient on 



* 'Person Christi,' vol. i., p. 479, 1 compare note in Thomson's 4 Bamp ton 
note against Baur, ' Versoknung,' p. 35 : | Lectures,' p. 287. 



344 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay YIII. 



two grounds ; because the Divine veracity, which had promised 
death, would not have been satisfied, and because tins would not 
free man from the physical corruption (97 Kara $v<jlv <f)6opd) 
winch he had incurred. The* "Word of God, the Son, who 
created the world, can alone restore it. He is above all, and can 
suffer and satisfy for all, and free all from then- natural corrup- 
tion ; for He indeed created them at first, and so can re-create. 
In order to this restoration, He, the incorporeal and incor- 
ruptible Word, made for Himself a temple, a house, in a human 
form and flesh. Now and then the expressions of Athanasius 
savour of Apollinarian views, as though Christ were the nature 
of God in the form of man, the human mind being left out of 
the account ; but in other places no one has more strongly 
expressed himself against this very error, and his comment on 
the words " Let this cup pass from me," and on " The spirit is 
willing, but the flesh is weak," is that they reveal two wills in 
man, — the human, that is of the flesh, and the Divine which is 
from God. The analogy between the creation and the restora- 
tion of man is closely pursued by Athanasius. He describes the 
redemption more as a mere renewal than as a development and 
completion of the creation of man ; and here lies the peculiarity 
of his system. The curse of death is taken away ; but more 
than this, the Word becomes, through the Holy Ghost, a living 
principle diffused through the hearts of men, freeing them from 
the power of sin, and enduing them with immortality. What 
part the death of the Lord bears in our restoration will appear 
from such expressions as these. His death is " a sacrifice offered 
on behalf of all and instead of all ;" * and it reconciles us to the 
Father, t for in it Jesus took on Him the punishments to which 
we were liable, and, by suffering in His own body our punishment, 
conferred salvation on us. J His death paid a debt,§ and was a 
ransom for us. || As our High-Priest He brought Himself as an 
offering to the Father, to purge us from our sins by His own 
blood.TI The power of this sacrifice to reconcile for the whole 
human species arose from the position in which Jesus stands to 
us all ; He is the Creator, and again He is the Kuler of all the 
world and of mankind, and so nothing that He does but must 



* De Incar. 20. X Cont. Ar. i. 60. || Oont. Apol. ii. 12. 

t De Deer. 14. § Cont. Ar. ii. 66. H Coiit. Ar. ii. 7. 



Essay VIII.] 



THE DEATH OF CHEIST. 



345 



influence all. When a king comes into a great city, and takes 
up his dwelling in a single house of it, the honour of the visit is 
reflected on all the city ; enemies and robbers desist from their 
work, and, through the presence in one house, the whole city is 
protected. So it is with the presence of our King.* Who can 
fail to see in this system all the Scriptural elements of the 
Atonement faithfully preserved? More than this might be 
proved if space and time allowed: the anxious recurrence to 
Holy Writ as the rule of faith, the correction by the light of 
Scripture of statements that run perilously close to error. 
In the Fathers the various representations of the work of the 
Lord, — the ransom, the sacrifice, the conflict with Satan, — all 
have reference to His death. We have seen this in Athanasius. 
Tertullian uses the phrase that Christ is " the universal Priest 
of God,"f in reference to His offering of Himself for men. No 
doubt the theories on this subject w T ere indefinite and incomplete ; 
but a greater mistake could not be made than to suppose that 
the doctrine of satisfaction and substitution was absent from the 
patristic writings, and lay dormant till the voice of Anselm woke 
it. Origen, w T ho is often said to know nothing of the substi- 
tutive sufferings of the Lord, asserts them expressly in several 
passages.:]: Cyril of Jerusalem not less so : — "We were enemies 
of God through sin, and God had appointed the sinner to die. 
One of two things therefore must needs have happened, — that 
God keeping His word should destroy all men, or that in His 
loving kindness He should cancel the sentence. But behold the 
wisdom of God ; He preserved both the truth of His sentence 
and the exercise of His loving kindness. Christ took our sins in 
His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should 
live to righteousness.'^ So Cyril of Alexandria : — " Since they 
who were the servants of sin were made subject to the punish- 
ment of sin, He who was free from sin, and had trod the paths of 
all righteousness, underwent the punishment of sinners, destroy- 
ing by His Cross the sentence of the old curse . . . ' being made 
a curse for us.' " || The same doctrine is found in Augustine, 



* De Incar. ix. Compare Mohler, Symbolik. p. 247. 

t Cont. Marc. iv. 9. § Catech. xiii. 33. 

X Cont. Cels. ii. 23, and vol. xviii. j| De Incarnatione, ch. xxv. in Mai's 

14, Explan. in Epist. ad Eom. iii. 8. | Patrum Bibliotheca. It is doubtful 



346 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



Hilary of Poitiers, and Ambrose. None of these writers worked 
out into a system the doctrine of the substitutive sacrifice of 
Christ ; but it is absurd to pretend, with these passages before 
us, that Anselm was the inventor of the doctrine, and the de- 
stroyer of another which is supposed to have usurped dominion 
over the minds of all the Fathers. It is something more than 
absurd when words are put into the mouth of Gregory Nazianzen 
which he never spoke, to the effect that there is no danger in 
errors about the mode of our redemption.* 



whether this work is Cyril's, but it is of 
about the same date, and other passages 
as express are quoted from Cyril's ac- 
knowledged works. 

* By what means a weak cause may 
be supported will appear from the his- 
tory of a spurious quotation. Mr. 
Garden, in his tract already quoted, 
says : " In the strong language of Gre- 
gory Nazianzen, we may affirm that 
'the mode in which Christ has re- 
deemed us is a matter in which we 
may err without danger.' " If Gregory 
the Theologian had made such an as- 
sertion, no doubt the language would 
have been as strong as it was startling. 
Uut he never did. Sir. Garden follows 
Professor Jowett, who says : " Gregory 
of [si'c] Nazianzen numbers specula- 
tions about the sufferings of Christ 
among those things on which it is 
useful to have correct ideas, but not 
dangerous to be mistaken." Professor 
Jowett has followed F. C. Baur, who, 
however, quotes the whole passage, 
and not a fragment of a sentence, and 
admits that it is not in harmony with 
the rest of Gregory's views. The pas- 
sage in question comes from the first 
of the ' Theological Orations ' of Gre- 
gory (Orat. xxvii. [xxxiii.]), in which 
he is inveighing against the Euno- 
mians for the length to which they 
carry their speculations on the nature 
and counsels of God. He suggests 
other subjects of discussion from pro- 
fane philosophy, in which they may 
show off their skill and eloquence 
without wronging God by irreverence. 
He then says : " But if you think these 
things unworthy of discussion, as tri- 
fling things that have been often re- 
futed, and desire to employ yourself on 
your own subjects, and seek the dis- 
tinction that may arise from these, I 



; will afford you even here a wide field. 
Philosophize about the world or worlds, 
about matter, the souL about reason- 
able creatures higher and lower, about 
resurrection, judgment, retribution, the 
sufferings of Christ; for in these tilings 
to attain our object is not useless, and to 
fail of it is free from peril (to hriTuyx&- 
veiv ovk axpycTOV koX to dLajJ.uprd.veLU 
! aKLvdwov)." Here there is not a word 
j about " the mode in which Christ has 
redeemed us the nature of our Lord's 
! sufferings is what they are allowed to 
j discuss, and not the consequences of 
those sufferings, of which no hint is 
{ given. As well say that the passage 
tells us it is safe to err on the side of 
\ materialism, because matter 'is men- 
tioned ; or safe to deny the soul's im- 
mortality, because the soul is men- 
tioned. There are questions, physical 
I and metaphysical, about all these 
i things, which admit of discussion, and 
yet need not trench on vital Christian 
| truth. The origin and duration of the 
world, the nature of matter, the soul's 
connexion with the body, the nature of 
reason, the state of the body in the 
I resurrection, the nature of future re- 
i wards and punishments, the sufferings 
| of the Lord, how far physical and how 
\ far mental, are -all questions of this sort. 
It is not even clear that the word Zllx- 
fxapraveiv means " to err from the 
! truth ;" it may be, as Leunclavius 
I renders it, " to fail of your object," and 
; the object in this case is success in 
disputation. But on this I do not 
insist. "We have here the solitary pa- 
tristic quotation by which lax views 
about the Atonement are supposed to 
be encouraged ; and Mr. Jowett prints 
part of the sentence, when the whole 
I would have at once disarmed his argu- 
| ment, whilst Mr. Garden puts words 



Essay VIII.] 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



347 



7. But it is time to pass to Anselm, the reputed parent of our 
modern teaching ; and we ought to be thoroughly satisfied upon 
the question whether he has or has not supplanted the Bible in 
our pulpits and treatises, and in our thoughts. The Cur JDeus 
Homo, of this great and truly humble writer, is an attempt to 
answer the question, AYhy was it requisite for man's salvation 
that God should become man ? Considering the Divine omnipo- 
tence, we might expect that the mere fiat of His will or the 
acceptance of some lower sacrifice than that of the only begotten 
Son of God might have sufficed to effect the reconciliation. The 
incidents of the Incarnation and the Crucifixion seem derogatory 
to God ; the Infinite Spirit clothing Himself with a finite nature, 
and allowing finite men and the power of evil to assail and 
triumph over Him, these are representations that may shock our 
reverence. If redemption was required at all, why was it not 
effected by means of a sinless man who was no more than man ? 
A mere man caused the fall, a mere man might have sufficed for 
the restoration. Anselm replies that this would not have pro- 
cured man's perfect restoration, for it would have left men 
dependent on one of themselves ; he to whom they owed re- 
demption would have been in some sense their master instead of 
God. But why, it may be urged, was there any need of redemp- 
tion at all ? When we speak of God's anger, we mean neither 
more nor less than His will to punish. The moment that will is 
withdrawn, there is neither anger nor punishment to fear ; and 
so it might appear that a mere revocation of the will to punish 
would of itself constitute salvation. The argument that God 
gave His Son as a ransom for man from the power of Satan, 
because it was right and just to recover by fair means a race 
who had freely and voluntarily given themselves over to his 
power, is at once dismissed : for the true reasons, namely that 



into the mouth of this Father which 
he never used, which he could not and 
would not have used. We are thankful 
for the admission that this is the best 
that can be done on that side of the 
argument. Let us put a true quotation 
from Gregory in the place of the sham 
one : " . . . the very sufferings of Christ 
by which all of us, without exception, 
were restored {aveirXdaQ-q^v) who par- 
take of the nature of the same Adam, 



and were deceived by the serpent and 
brought into the death of sin, and 
were saved again by the heavenly 
Adam, and were brought back to the 
tree of life whence we had fallen, by 
means of the tree of ignominy " (Orat. 
xxxiii. p. 609, ed. Paris, 1840). This 
is one among many statements as to 
" the mode in which Christ redeemed 
us." 



348 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



the Devil cannot properly have either merit or power or right 
over man ; that the power which in one sense he exerts against 
mankind was only permissive, and that it expired when the per- 
mission was withdrawn. He then proceeds to establish the need 
of redemption on purer grounds. Every creature that can will 
and act owes to God an entire obedience, as the honour due to 
Him. All sin, then, is a wrong done to His honour, of what kind 
soever the offence is. Punishment must attach to sin invariably, 
in order to mark the difference between sin and holiness ; it 
would not only encourage sin, if men thought that the Almighty 
were blind to it, but would obscure and distort our views of the 
Divine nature itself, if we conceived of Him as one to whom sin 
and its opposite are both alike. We should thus regard God as 
admitting sin into the order of the universe without dissent or 
protest, whereas we know that the very nature of sin is disorder. 
God, however, cannot suffer disorder ; for though sin could not 
really detract from His power and dignity, its aim and intent 
are to dishonour and deface, as far as may be, the beauty of the 
Divine government. If it may do this and yet draw at pleasure 
on the Divine but free forgiveness ; unrighteousness is more free 
and unshackled than obedience. Now no man can render for 
his brethren the full obedience required: "a sinner cannot 
justify a sinner." Even if a man with his heart full of love and 
contrition were to renounce all earthly solaces, and in labour and 
abstinence to strive to obey God in all things, and to do good to 
all and forgive all, he would only be doing his duty. But he is 
unable to do even this ; and it is his misery that he cannot plead 
his inability as an excuse, because that proceeds from sin. He 
must be of the same nature as those for whom he renders the 
obedience, in order that it may be accepted as theirs ; and yet if 
the satisfaction is to be complete, he must be able to render to 
God something greater than every created thing, for among men 
pure righteousness is not to be found ; and if so, he must be 
God, for what is there above the creature but God Himself ? 
Therefore he must be God and man, whose life far exalted above 
all created things must be infinitely valuable. As to the manner 
of this redemption, Anselm uses these words, which bear on a 
controverted point in his theory : — " If man sinned for pleasure, 
is it not consistent that he should make satisfaction by hardness ? 
And if he were most easily overcome by the Devil, so as to 



Essay YIIL] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



349 



dishonour God by sin, is it not just that man making satisfaction 
to God for sin, should conquer the Devil, for the honour of God, 
in the most difficult manner ? " If he departed from God com- 
pletely by sin, the mode of making satisfaction should be by a 
complete devotion to God. Now man can undergo nothing 
harder or more difficult, for the honour of God, than death ; nor 
can he devote liimself to God more completely than when he 
delivers himself to death for His honour.* But Anselm insists 
more on the life of obedience which was acted out by Jesus, and 
which no other could have rendered, as the satisfaction which 
was rendered to God. He made atonement for men, by ren- 
dering through life a perfect obedience, in lieu of theirs, and by 
a death which, as sinless, He did not owe, and as God He might 
have escaped. Thus is the Divine mercy, which seems to be 
excluded when we think of the Divine justice and of the infinite 
amount of sin, brought into perfect harmony with justice, so that 
the reason can discern that no better scheme of redemption could 
have been devised. 

8. This is a rough sketch of the system to which, as we are 
often told, modern theology is indebted for the theory of satis- 
faction which it teaches. We are supposed by many to owe the 
doctrine of the Cross to a pious Christian writer as late as the 
eleventh century. Let us sift the claim. 

•The foundation of Anselm' s theory is found in Athanasius. 
Both these writers view the Atonement habitually as a transac- 
tion before the bar of Divine justice in heaven ; both seek the 
explanation of its possibility in the divine nature of Him who 
atones ; both conceive it as the payment of a debt due to God. 
It would have been equally hard for both to admit the force of 
the modern objection that it is not lawful for one man to be 
punished for another ; for while the perfect human nature of the 
Lord was essential to complete the Atonement, the human nature 
is dwelt in by the divine, and the will that chooses to suffer for 
man is divine. With both these writers the great moment of 
the Atonement is found in the Incarnation ; in the presence in 



* II. 11. I find in this passage the 
doctrine of vicarious retribution, which 
Baur fails to find in the Cur Deus Homo. 
Mr. Garden (p. 5), in deciding between 
us on this point, thinks it enough to 
quote a passage in the next chapter 



(II. 12) which is supposed to preclude 
the doctrine. The passage, however, 
seems to me wholly irrelevant, refer- 
ring merely to the question whether 
what one does willingly can be the 
cause of misery. 



350 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



human flesh of one able to act for men. What we owe to 
Anselm is not so much the general plan of salvation as the 
minute and careful delineation of it. Nowhere else is there 
such logical precision, such a continuous chain of deduction. 
This is the kind of originality which we ought to attribute to him. 

9. Anselm has indeed introduced a word, which has ever since 
been associated with the dogma of the Atonement — the word 
satisfaction. But a new word is not necessarily an innovation in 
thought. The legal sense of the word satisfaction is the ap- 
peasing a creditor on the subject of his debt, not necessarily by 
the payment of it (solutio), but by any means that he will accept. 
It is used more than once by Tertullian, but not in the sense of 
vicarious satisfaction ; in that sense no doubt it owes its currency 
to Anselm. It has gone far to replace the word sacrifice. But 
the fundamental ideas of the two words are not so far apart as is 
often assumed. Sacrifice, in the usage of the Bible, is the 
appointed rite by which a Jewish citizen who has broken the 
law and forfeited thereby his position within the pale of the 
Covenant, is enabled to procure his restoration. It is a Jewish 
word, and belongs to the positive provisions of the Jewish 
polity, and not to general ethics. Still, as the Jewish constitu- 
tion reflected the general dealings of God with all the world, 
the term sacrifice applies to the restoration of all men who 
have strayed from God by their sins. With thankful hearts we 
may look up to Christ as the lamb of our paschal sacrifice ; 
since by His death and resurrection, and without any merit or 
effort of our own, we are restored to the place before God which 
we had lost. The word satisfaction, on the other hand, implies 
a debt which we have not the means of paying, a debt of punish- 
ment in consequence of our sins, or of obedience to compensate 
former disobedience. Both terms imply a restoration through 
something which is not us nor ours. Whether we speak of it as 
a sacrifice or a payment, the same thought may be present to 
our minds ; a reconcilement of God and us, wrought not by us 
but by our Redeemer. It is a gain to us, as sacrificial usages 
become forgotten, to acquire a term which expresses the same 
idea appealing to the principles of general ethics. But facts, 
and not words, are the subject of revelation ; what we believe is 
that the death of the Redeemer purchased our life, our recon- 
ciliation, that without His obedience our sins would have borne 



Essay VIII.] 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



351 



their natural fruit of death. And whether we call this act a 
sacrifice, on account of its being an offering to appease the 
Divine wrath, or a satisfaction, as it is a mode of payment which 
God accepts instead of the debt of obedience that we cannot 
render, is of less importance than might at first appear. So 
lone as we believe that the wrath of God because of our disobe- 
dience fell in the shape of affliction on Him who alone had so 
acted as to please God, the terms in which it may be expressed 
may be suffered to vary. 

10. The system of Anselm is indeed open to criticism, but 
not for the introduction of the word sacrifice. So far is it from 
being an undue development of Holy Writ, that it falls far 
short of it in the completeness of its statements. As the Atone- 
ment transcends all our means of exposition, it must needs be 
that, the more exactly it is fitted to any analogous human affairs, 
the more entirely will some of its complex elements be omitted 
from the description. Hence, for example, there is the danger 
lest the Atonement degenerate into a transaction between a 
righteous Father on the one side, and a loving Saviour on the 
other, because in the human transaction from which the analogy 
is drawn two distinct parties are concerned ; whereas in the plan 
of salvation one will operates, and in the Father and the Son 
alike justice and love are reconciled. Again, the reconciliation 
effected by Christ appears rather as a bringing God into 
harmony with Himself, His mercy with His justice, than as a 
reconciliation of man with God. The passages of Scripture that 
speak of the wrath of God against man are not explicable of 
Anselm's system. The exclamation of the Baptist, that Jesus is 
the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world ; the 
prophecy of His sufferings by Isaiah (ch. liii.) ; the words of Peter 
that He "his own self bare our sins in his own body on the 
tree * and passages of like import in St. Paul's writings, f can 
only find place with Anselm by a very forced interpretation. 
His scheme is mainly this, that the merit of the perfect obedi- 
ence of Jesus was so great as to deserve a great reward, and 
that in answer to the prayer of the Lord this reward was given 
in the form of the salvation of His brethren. But Christ 
does not appear in this system as groaning and suffering under 



* 1 Pet. ii. 2i. 



f Gal. iii. 13. 2 Cor. v. 21. 



352 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



the curse of the world, as He does in Holy Scripture. Until 
the time, of Anselm the doctrine of the Atonement had within 
certain limits fluctuated with the change of teachers ; the 
doctrine itself was one and the same, but this or that aspect of 
it had been made prominent. Anselm aimed at fixing in one 
system the scattered truths ; and the result has been that he, 
like his predecessors, made some parts of the truth conspicuous 
to the prejudice of the rest. 

II. Looking fairly at the whole period from Ignatius to 
Anselm, we are obliged to own that the efficacy of the death of 
the Lord was always believed, and that of the three parts or 
moments of this doctrine, the love, and the justice, and the 
practical obedience, not one fell to the ground. The theory of a 
victory over Satan, gained by deceit, shrinks into its proper pro- 
portions ; it is an excrescence on the truth, and not a leprosy 
turning all the truth into corruption. 

III. 1. Holy Scripture contains the doctrine, and the Church 
has always taught it. Whence, then, the repugnance to it which 
some persons of serious and devout minds have expressed ? The 
objections for the most part take the form of a denial that it is 
possible that one man should suffer for the sin of another ; that 
the wrath of God could be appeased by the sacrifice of one who 
had done no sin in the place of the sinful. A thoroughgoing 
sense of man's responsibility for his own acts, and a reluctance 
to own that the sufferings of the just can ever be the conse- 
quence of the sins of others, are the two principal motives at 
work. How can these be most easily dealt with ? 

2. All the difficulties that belong to this question are intro- 
duced prior to it by a consideration of sin itself. The conscience 
of man admits that there is such a thing as guilt ; and so strong, 
decided, and constant is its witness, that there is no fear that 
mankind in the long run will attempt to explain away the fact 
that sin exists. But when I am asked to believe that it is 
against the Divine plan that any other being should take away 
from me any of the consequences of my guilt, I think myself 
entitled to say that it is the correlative of this proposition that 
no one should have brought upon me any of the guilt and its 
consequences. It is surely not more repugnant to God's justice 
that another should bear my guilt than that I should be guilty 
because of another ; nay, Divine justice will be more readily 



Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 353 

reconciled with a plan in which One who is entirely willing to 
bear my sin should take off its intolerable burden from me 
who am earnestly desirous to get rid of it, than with a plan 
in which sinfulness devolves from one who did not mean his 
own faults to do me harm, Upon me who by no means wished 
to inherit them. But this kind of devolution, or transmission, is 
a fact of constant occurrence of which no man can be ignorant. 
We open the works of writers like Broussais and Biichner, and 
find such importance given to the influence on moral habits of 
hereditary transmission, of age, sex, maladies, mode of living, 
and climate, that the doctrine of individual responsibility seems 
for the moment to be in peril. We need to retire within, and 
take counsel of conscience, in order to resist the invitation to 
believe a that what we call free-will is nothing but our being 
conscious of a will, without being conscious of the antecedents 
that determine its mode of action," which, translated into plainer 
nonsense, would mean — being conscious of our will without being 
conscious that we did not possess one. But all are agreed that 
outward circumstances and inward constitution derived from pa- 
rents and ancestors by physical laws, have a great influence upon 
the character of men. In extreme cases this may be true to the 
extent of paralysing the will altogether. If a young man has 
sprung from parents of intemperate habits, who. lived by steal- 
ing, and has been brought up among companions of the same 
sort, we shall hardly look to find him any better than the 
soil in which he grew; and any efforts to amend him and 
call forth his moral nature would be preceded by the effort to 
transplant him. Alike in the good and evil qualities of men 
the effect of hereditary transmission comes under daily notice. 
And since we are always invited in this question to discuss it 
in forensic language, and are told that no man can be allowed 
before a human tribunal to take upon himself the position of the 
criminal and suffer the punishment of another, because every 
one arraigned there must bear his own burden, we must remark 
that, if every one did actually bear his own burden there, human 
justice would have attained a perfection which it has never* yet 
boasted. In graduated punishments for the same offence there 
is a rough attempt to take into account the antecedents of the 
criminal and the amount of his temptation ; but these palliations 
are not proved in evidence, and it is bv a roui>*h e^uess only that 

° 2 A 



354 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



an equitable apportionment of punishment is attempted. In 
defining the line at which mental imbecility extinguishes all 
sense of responsibility laws have utterly failed, and tribunals have 
stultified themselves by conflicting decisions. But the argu- 
ments on these cases prove that all believe in a class of minds 
where guilt is just imputable and no more, — where the mental 
debility, often congenital, all but extinguishes the moral 
offence. In cases of such nice difficulty, mistakes must be 
made ; punishment must fall on the wrong man. Nor is this 
mere speculation ; a man has been decided insane at one place 
for a crime for which another man at another place has been 
hanged, according as the judge and jury made prominent in 
then minds the safety of society or consideration for the 
supposed criminal. Capital punishment has fallen upon men 
who, upon the same facts before a different tribunal, would have 
been judged to have exercised no choice at all, but to have 
acted out the course to which birth and disease and the like 
compelled them. Absolute compulsion of this kind is no doubt 
rare ; but absolute freedom is more than rare, it is impossible. 
Men enter this world the hens of passions, perhaps cultivated 
in the last generation to an unnatural height ; they are -nurtured 
on bad examples and a low morality, so that they cannot do 
the things that they would. And it is the rule, and not the 
exception, that men's moral actions are tinctured with the colour 
of the actions of others before and around them, which they 
could not possibly have caused. ' Now, if these facts are ad- 
mitted, — if, instead of that perfect isolation of responsibility 
which some insist on, a joint responsibility is the universal rule, — 
with what show of reason can they pretend that it is on this 
ground that the Christian scheme is untenable ? Look into the 
black London alleys teeming with ignorance, improvidence, and 
vice ; do you not see written in those faces eloquent in wretched- 
ness, " We did not place ourselves here : were the choice given 
us freely, we would not be as we are " ? Then what do we 
think of the consistency of those who see guilt brought on by 
others, but think it revolting that another should take it off? 
Living comments upon the words " In Adam all die " abound, 
and cannot be blotted out : it ou°;ht. not then to revolt our 
moral sense that those other words are added, " In Christ shall 
all be made alive." The latter words, in fact, go far to solve 



m&kY ¥111.] 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



355 



mystery of the former. For the constant transmission of 
sinfulness, the heritage of sins bequeathed from the fathers to 
their children, is revolting to the moral sense when severed 
from the thought of a Deliverer. The message of Heaven to 
m is, " Ye are all of one family, partakers of the family heritage 
of sin, and wretchedness, and ruin ; and yet every one of you 
driven by the stimulus of conscience to protest against the ruin, 
and to erect yourselves above it. Ye are accustomed to this 
derived destruction, this hereditary partnership in gnilt; lift 
your eyes one step further back, to that common Father from 
whom ye sprung, from whom ye have lived in separation. By 
taking your nature I will re-establish that lost connection, I will 
make the Father's lost favour accessible to you again. I will 
undo the curse, by placing myself under it. I will sanctify the 
flesh, which the sin of generations has made unclean. For I 
am partaker of the Father's nature, and the power over you 
which belongs to Him is mine also ; and I am partaker of your 
nature in all save in the sin of it ; and thus I am the Mediator 
between God and man." 

3. There is then nothing new or startling in the revelation of 
a great moral^good bestowed on us without our effort ; it is in 
harmony with the system under which we live, as members 
of a great family having common interests even in things 
belonging to the soul. But, beside the general fact, the mode 
of our redemption, mysterious as it must be, should still be in 
harmony with our mental constitution ; it should be such as 
not to shock our natural expectation. We cannot possibly 
hope to understand it ; but it must not be such that we can 
understand it ought not to be. The question — Why should 
J esus have died for our sins instead of simply declaring forgive- 
ness ? Why was not He the ambassador of forgiveness instead 
of the artificer of it? — will obtrude even upon submissive 
minds. Now the death of Jesus, after such a life as His, was 
the crowning act and achievement of sin ; and so showed to 
man the extent of his own corruption. Here was one whose 
every act went to deserve the titles of " the Holy One, and the 
Just," whose love for His own people gushed forth through the 
openings of a hundred miracles wrought for their good ; whose 
speech was meek, and whose life could provoke no jealousy, nor 
threaten the foundations of any lawful power ; who had fed, 

2 a 2 



356 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



or healed, or taught many thousands of the people that ought 
to have been ready witnesses in his behalf; whose doctrines 
seldom failed to produce on the hearers a profound impression 
in favour of a teacher different from and far above all others ; 
yet whose goodness quickened the hatred of those in authority, 
and was the direct cause of reviling, persecution, and death. 
By how much the example of the sinless Jesus is conspicuous, 
by so much is the sin of His persecution and death intensi- 
fied. Had there been in the Lord (the supposition must be 
pardoned) one trace of human folly or sin, high-priest and Pha- 
risee would have been more tolerant, because the contrast that 
rebuked them would have been less violent. But that shining 
armour showed no flaw nor stain. Their hatred was pure 
hatred of goodness ; their sentence of death was passed because 
there was no crime ; the death itself was the first death that 
was the wages of no sin. And so the Apostles, in preaching 
the Gospel, wanted no better arguments for condemning sin: 
that men had imbrued their hands in the blood of One who 
was sinless and who loved them, was enough to abase any 
candid spirit. As when some man of doubtful repute becomes 
suddenly recognised as the author of some enormous crime, 
and all his fellows recoil from him, and will not give him a cup 
of water lest they seem to countenance his evil deed, so, when 
mankind saw that the blood of the sinless Jesus was red on the 
hand of the rulers and the people, they were pricked to the 
heart by the spectacle, and fled from a haUnt of guilt too 
horrible for them to live in longer. "Men and brethren, 

what shall we do ? Save yourselves from this untoward 

generation." * In the death of Jesus sin stood revealed to 
itself. In that deed it first reached its full height ; it brought 
forth into act all the potential consequences of ages of lust 
and malice. The devil was a liar and a murderer from the 
beginning, and men obeyed him in all falsehood and wrong. 
But he never showed what he was capable of till he murdered 
the sinless Bedeemer in the name of God. And with that 
crowning act his power was scattered and overthrown. We are 
almost tempted to recur to the language of the Fathers, as to 
the delusion into which Satan was betrayed. Satan as lightning 



* Acts ii. 37, 40. 



Essay VIII.] 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



357 



fell from heaven, just as lie stood upon the highest heap of ruin. 
And out of the discord and the darkness of that hour, the most 
terrible in human history, was heard a voice proclaiming peace 
to man, just when Satan's foot was planted most firmly on his 
neck. 

4. " But," it is answered, " what we object to is the use of 
such words as imply that Jesus fell under the wrath of God and 
became a curse for us. These cannot be applied properly to 
our Lord ; but if at all, only in a loose and figurative way." Now 
what are the tokens of the curse under which man labours ? * 
It shows itself in his social relations, in his relation to nature, 
and in his relation to God. 

The contrast between our aspirations after social progress and 
the actual state of society marks strongly the effect of sin and 
wrath upon it. Whilst we sigh after a reign of industry and 
peace and love, the thunders of a causeless and profitless war 
mutter again in the air, and portend the loss of the fruits of fifty 
years of progress to the devoted nations engaged in it. We 
would befriend and raise the poor, but the necessities of their 
position are a chain round them that seems to make us and them 
helpless for good. For want of a little more food and a little 
more room in their dwellings, the sublimest truths fall dead 
upon their ears. Every great step of social progress, however 
plainly good and just, has had its battlefields or its scaffolds. 
Doubt, and suffering, and selfishness abound. Commercial spe- 
culations, founded in sheer fraud, collapse and bury the trusting 
multitude in their ruins. Life must be for most of our popula- 
tion a constant struggle against starvation. The complaints 
against our present social condition come not from Christian 
writers only, but from social reformers of every degree and 
creed.y 

The relations of man to nature are likewise " out of joint." 
The high purposes that the soul is able to conceive are thwarted 
by the body. Hereditary indolence, or temper, or desire, stands 
across the path; and men despair when they measure their 
meagre performance with their high promise, and find too often 

gmniiigii g£ imn$ .1 v; — n — i — — ' ~ 



* See Gess, Lelire, v. d. ' Versiih- | chapter of Bucliez, ' Science de 1'His- 
nung.' I toire.' 

t For example, see the opening | 



358 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIIL 



the evil habit growing on them and checking their pace, as the 
cheetah pulls down the running deer. And the bodily organism, 
crippled at the outset with the faults perhaps of a former gene- 
ration, breaks down prematurely ; and " the night when no man 
can work" overtakes the pilgrim when mom has scarcely 
passed. 

But the third effect of the curse is worse than these ; the 
relation between God and man is broken by sin. " Sin is a 
great ditch and wall, dividing us from God." * The law of God 
is lost, and the soul becomes dark and self-seeking, and without 
purposes of good. Sometimes extravagant and nameless horrors 
of vice show what man without God may be capable of :f but 
always the want of God has been accompanied by want of love 
and of good purposes and of self-government. And the wages 
of sin have been death ; a death of the spirit in men that seemed 
to live. 

5. Now it is idle to discuss whether we ought to say that our 
Lord became a curse for us, if we have not exhausted the direct 
evidence of what He became and suffered for us. Did He or 
did He not put His neck under the yoke of this curse and bear 
His share of it ? 

Did He claim any social exemption ? He accepted the evils 
of poverty ; it followed Him from the manger to the carpenter's 
workshop, to the wilderness. For thirty years He dwelt with 
a family that did not understand Him, in a city that despised Him 
and would rebel against His first efforts to teach. His con- 
versation was not among scholars t nor statesmen ; but with 
lepers and lunatics, with halt and maimed, with men afflicted 
and possessed. All the sufferings of our social state, all that 
makes the aspect of society painful to a feeling heart, were brought 
around Him, and He showed no repugnance. The twelve whom 
He chose for His friends, to receive his constant teaching, were 
dull scholars, who knew Him not, even to the end. At last a 
disciple betrayed Him ; the priest of His Father pronounced that 
it was good that He should die for the people ; the Prince of the 
chosen people was delivered up by them to the Gentiles, and put 
•to death ; and His disciples fled in terror from His side. 

But it is to be observed that, even if the death of our Lord 



* Theophylact. in Luc. 14. f Rom. i. 28. Gal. v. 19. % Luke iv. 28. 



Essay VIII.] 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



359 



bad not taken place, even if He had ascended in glory without 
being put to death in shame, it would have been true that He 
became a curse for us. In point of justice there would be no 
question of degree ; and even if there had been no death, that 
Jesus should have suffered even one look of scorn from some 
proud JSTazarene who knew Him as the carpenter's son, and this 
on our account, would involve the whole discussion of the Divine 
justice. The sinless and the just has suffered something which 
He did not deserve, be it little or great. If we are so rash as 
to impugn the Divine justice at all, understanding it so little, 
we must begin before the cross, with the first indignity, with the 
first pressure of earthly want. It is, perhaps, natural that the 
shocking discrepancy between the Divine sufferer and the mode 
of His death should shock our sense of justice more than all 
that had gone before ; because death awakens our sympathies 
more powerfully than the less harrowing incidents of a life of 
hardship. But if we are to appeal to a metaphysical theory of 
Divine justice, we must analyze our facts more exactly ; and 
then one of our first admissions must be, that if it is unjust to 
slay it is unjust to smite or to degrade. And in order to set our 
theory going, we shall have to soften with docetic glosses not 
only the account of the passion, but that of the whole life of the 
Redeemer. 

But He tastes also the bitterness of death. Death came by 
disobedience ; and the fear of death, and of all the possible con- 
sequences of death, has been one of the burdens of the human 
race ever since. " Through fear of death " men "were all their life- 
time subject unto bondage." * One who should be exempt from 
the fear of death would not bear the whole burden of man's 
condition. How far was the Eedeemer partaker of this fear ? 
Perhaps it is difficult to sever the dread of death from the 
burden of sin which was in death to be born ; but towards the 
close of the history we see the Redeemer girding Himself for 
the terrible suffering, "steadfastly setting his face to go to 
Jerusalem," f expressing His state of pain until the baptism 
that He must be baptized with could be accomplished.^ Tears 
had fallen from His eyes at seeing the stroke of death take 
effect on Lazarus his friend ; and from the thought of His own 



* Heb. ii. 15. 



f Matt. x. 32. 



t Luke xii. 50. 



360 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



death there was that shrinking which belongs to a man. He 
shared out curse in tasting the bitterness of death. 

And with the thought of death must have mingled a still 
more gloomy thought — the sense of the weight of sin. It is at 
this point that some will cease to go along with us. That any 
true feeling of sin, as of a burden on His k own spirit, can ever 
have belonged to Jesus, is what some, careful for the honour of 
their Lord, will not admit. Let us refrain from theories on such 
a subject on both sides. But there are two places of the Gospel 
history that cannot be understood except on the supposition that 
sin and the power of darkness were suffered to press upon Him 
with a terrible weight. The scene in Gethsemane is one which 
Christians would fain keep out of their disputes ; * yet it is 
described for our instruction, and we must venture to enter 
there. And it seems to me that those who would place all the 
import of the Lord's death in its being a heroic termination of a 
heroic and devout life, and an example of a faith true to itself 
even in extremity, receive under these olive-trees their most com- 
plete refutation. For first, the Redeemer here appears harrowed 
by a misery which many a martyr has been free from, utterly 
perturbed by a prospect which a Stephen, an Ignatius, a 
Ridley viewed without dismay. If no more than death is in 
question, we should expect an example of calm reliance on the 
present help of God. But we find the unaccountable agony, the 
bloody sweat, the prayer for deliverance : all fortifying and 
calming influences seem withdrawn for a time from Him who 
through His life so constantly enjoyed them. We are astonished 
that the curse of our race should be suffered to press in all its 
terrible reality upon the sinless and divine Son. Yet there is 
the description of His great struggle. We cannot refuse to see 
that it relates to One utterly broken down for a time in a 
wretchedness beyond our conception, a prey to thoughts which, 
judging by their outward effects, were far darker than those 
of the felon the night before his execution, when He counts 
the quarters of each hour, and hears the hammers that are 



* " A feeling always seizes me," says 
Krummacher, " as if it were unbecom- 
ing to act as a spy on the Son of the 
living God in His last secret transactions 
with His heavenly Father ; and that a 
sinful eye ventures too much in daring 



to look upon a scene in which the Lord 
appears in such a state of weakness 
and abandonment that places Him on 
the same footing with the most mise- 
rable among men." 



Essay VIII.] 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



361 



busy at his scaffold. If our salvation is to be made an easier 
work, if the price paid is to be abated, we must forget Geth- 
semane or deny it.* But if we believe with the Apostle that 
" God hath made Him to be sin for us Who knew no siu, that we 
might be made the righteousness of God in Him," f then the 
terror and the agony become accountable. All the inner horror 
of sin is revealed to Him. Sin in its nakedness is more hor- 
rible than death. And He sees it as it is; the blasphemous 
self- worship that it is, the revolt against God, the violation of 
order, the death in life. And all this sin is His, though He 
is sinless of it : for He has thrown in His lot with men, and 
has proposed to Himself the task of breaking down this foul 
and destroying tyranny. The mystery of that agency lies in 
the completeness of His humanity. He is no bystander, watch- 
ing how men sin. He is one of themselves, but with the 
power of God over them to make their interests His own. In 
Him, as God, they live, and move, and have their being : and 
now the power of darkness is let loose to show Him all the sin 
and misery, and defiance of God, that He, by clothing Himself 
with human nature, has taken into His bosom. The words of 
the Lord upon the cross are an echo from the garden of agony : 
"Why hast Thou forsaken me?" These words from the 
twenty-second Psalm, uttered at such a moment, are of course 
no mere ejaculation of pain ; they recall a Psalm which, as any 
one may see, contains matter that can apply to Messiah only. 
But the words themselves express a sense of desertion by God : 
they can have no other meaning. Vain would it be to attempt 
to explain how He, one with the Father, and never severed 
from Him by spot or stain of guilt, could have admitted such a 
feeling. But there are the words : we dare not deny them. 
They belong to Him, not as Son of God, but as burdened with 
the sins of the world. They express perhaps the complete 
separation which sin makes between man and God. He is now 
the Advocate of all mankind ; and their separation from God 
because of sin extends itself to Him for a season. It appears, 
then, that the question whether the wrath of God can be said 



* Mr. Garden, whose theory is that 
the Lord would never have felt misery, 
is here consistent. He forgets Geth- 
semane altogether : he quotes only our 



Lord's words upon the Cross. — Tracts, 
&c, p. 10. 

t 2 Cor. v. 21. . 



362 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay Till. 



to have fallen upon the Son, who has done no sin, is no verbal 
question, but a question of fact. Jesus did suffer all those 
things which are the evident tokens of wrath against us. He 
tried the sufferings of our disjointed social state ; He knew the 
fear of death, and the anguish of sin which separates from 
God. The motives of those who would protect His name from 
the supposed contamination of sin, are not unworthy of respect. 
" Be it far from thee, Lord !" came from one who loved his Lord 
sincerely ; but " Get thou behind me, Satan !" was the answer 
he received. When the Son of God is minded, of His own free 
will and His exceeding love towards our race, to come down 
from heaven, and in the form of a servant to explore all the 
secrets of our vile condition, it is more reverent in us to observe 
and love His condescension, than to say, out of some private 
text-book of morality, " This shall not be unto thee !" The 
mystery of evil is far beyond our rules and measures. There 
must be a cause when such a great act of condescension had to 
be done. But done it was ; and when all the vials of wrath 
were poured out upon His head, and when He did not shrink 
from receiving them, it is idle to discuss whether this shall be 
called wrath or love ; when He smarted under all that we call 
punishment, it is idle to say that it must have another name. 

But you that are so jealous lest the name of sin should 
attach to the sinless One, carry the jealousy another step. 
When the Pharisees revile and the Priests entrap the Lord, 
and when the scourging, and the buffets, and the spitting 
mangle and defile His innocent frame, you think that nature 
itself should give tokens of indignation. And yet, how close to 
God sin has ever come! how sins have ever polluted and 
denied the world, which is His temple ! and you have not con- 
ceived of the sins in that light, as sins that touch Him. When 
a man slays his brother, or pollutes the virtue of a woman, and 
each is dear to the Almighty Maker, does not the murderer 
smite God, and the betrayer spit upon Him ? and the long-suffer- 
ing Kuler of the world bears, as in His bosom, all our wayward 
sins, and weaves them into the web of His providence, and 
contrives an order of things in which these evil elements may 
work and not destroy. Jealous of the Son's contact with sin,, 
can we not, by a larger reach of the same morality, conceive 
that the Father's contact with, and permission of sin, is a pro- 



Essay VIII.] 



THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 



363 



found mystery? Can you not see in this fact a greater hideous- 
ness in evil, since every day that it is permitted seems to 
impugn the justice or the power of Him who could abolish 
every sin, with the doers of it, by the breath of His mouth ? 
If so, let us at least assent to the position that a disease so 
utterly past our comprehension may require means to cure it 
that shock the ordinary conclusions of our conscience ; and that 
a wider view, if we could stand high enough to take it, might 
correct our crude impressions. 

6. The doctrine of Atonement is many-sided, as all mysteries 
are when we try to express them in the forms of human 
thought. And no doctrine has suffered so much, on the part 
both of friend and foe, from a one-sided treatment. " It has 
been said, that this doctrine represents the Almighty as moved 
with fury at the insults offered to His Supreme Majesty, as 
impatient to pour forth His fury upon some being, as indifferent 
whether that being deserves it or not, and as perfectly appeased 
upon finding an object of vengeance in His own innocent Som 
It has been said, that a doctrine which represents the Almighty 
as sternly demanding a full equivalent for that which was due 
to Him, and as receiving that equivalent in the sufferings of 
His Son, transfers all the affection and gratitude of the human 
race from an inexorable Being, who did not remit any part of 
His right, to another being who satisfied His claim. It has been 
said, that a translation of guilt is impossible, because guilt is 
personal ; and that a doctrine which represents the innocent as 
punished instead of the guilty, and the guilty as escaping by 
this punishment, contradicts the first principles of justice, 
subverts all our ideas of a righteous government, and, by hold- 
ing forth an example of reward and punishment dispensed by 
Heaven, without any regard to the character of those who 
receive them, does encourage men to live as they please."* So 
the objections were summed up many years since, and there is 
little to alter after the recent controversy. Now, most of these 
objections have arisen from a crude and one-sided way of stating 
the doctrine on the part of its friends, and disappear when all 
the elements of the truth are taken in. Sin exists ; and there- 
with must enter a host of contradictions. Sin is that which turns 



* Rev. Dr. Hill's Lectures, b. iv., eh. 3, quoted by Dr. Candlish. 



364 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



the love of God into wrath ; not into the passion of wrath as 
men feel it, but to the intention of visiting with punishment. 
With sin, the face of God is altered against us and turned away. 
We know the theological objections to this mode of speaking, 
but there is no other open to us. God cannot change ; but 
yet His purpose towards us is changed in its workings by our- 
selves. And this enormous power all classes of Christians 
assign to sin, that it can dam up and divert the current of 
Divine love, that set so strongly towards us. We are obliged 
to pick our expressions, whenever we touch the subject, lest sin 
itself should be laid to the account of Him who is the governor 
of the world, and suffers sin in the world. Sin turns love to 
wrath, the life of our souls to the death of them, our light to 
darkness, our free adherence to God to enmity against Him. 
From this view of sin, as something which is suffered to thwart 
the free workings of God's love, and which casts shadows as of 
the darkness of Gethsemane over all the scenes of history, 
where evil is suffered to come in and overcloud the good, 
there is no escape except in the pantheistic view, which reads 
all sin and^ evil as good in a transition state. And against 
that view conscience will ever protest; for it is the best 
proof of our still retaining vestiges of good that conscience 
finds all the suggestions of physiological materialists, and of 
metaphysical pantheists, powerless to lull to sleep the sense of 
individual guilt, which yet she has so strong an interest in 
getting rid of. To remove sin and its consequences God sent 
His Son, the Eternal Word of the Father, to become truly man 
as He was truly God, and to mediate between men and Him for 
their relief. It is not true, whatever friend or foe shall say it, 
that God looked forth on His works to find some innocent man 
able and willing to bear the weight of His wrath, and found 
Jesus and punished Him. It is all false, because it is only half 
true. The Son of God took our nature upon Him, and there- 
with the sins of it, at least in their consequences ; not because 
He became one man among many, but because when God takes 
man's nature He still has divine right and power over all, and 
so manhood is taken into God. That sinfulness should press 
upon the Son of God, in any of its consequences, revolts us at 
first ; nay, it was intended to revolt us and thereby to secure 
our repentance : and jealous for His honour we protest that of 



Essay VIIL] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 365 

sin He shall know nothing. Yes ; but we have been flaunting 
our sins in the face of the Father, to His displeasure, ever since 
we were born ; using the limbs He makes and keeps strong, for 
purposes of lust and violence ; quickening the pulses that He 
controls, with draughts of passionate excitement : in a word, 
sinning before God's face and under His hand. Is it less 
shocking that sin should be in the world which is God's, than 
that it should be in the manhood which is Christ's ? No : both 
before and after the incarnation sin is a contradiction ; and it is 
less difficult to conceive sin taken by the Son upon Himself for 
a time and by way of remedy, than it is to understand it as 
suffered by the Father always as a permitted destruction. The 
punishment in this transaction falls on the innocent. And we are 
told that such a doctrine is cruel, unjust, and useless : cruel, 
because it punishes where it could forgive ; useless, because it 
misses the true end of punishment in striking the guiltless, 
which can never deter from guilt ; and unjust, because it 
falls on one who knows no sin. But it is not cruel, if it 
thereby marks for ever the enormity of sin which needed such 
a sacrifice ; it is not useless, if it changed the relation of man to 
God, and if in fact it has ever since been turning men to 
holiness and " drawing all men unto " Jesus ; * and it is not 
unjust, because the Father's will to punish never outstripped the 
Son's to suffer, and because His death was a solemn offering of 
Himself in love, for man's redemption. Nor can there be any 
tendency to transfer from the severe Father to the loving Son, 
the love we owe to both ; for the mode of our redemption was 
designed by both, and the Son adopts the Father's and the 
Father sanctions the Son's loving self-sacrifice. Nor is there 
the least pretext for saying that this doctrine encourages men 
to live as they please, by holding forth the spectacle of rewards 
earned for those who do not deserve them and punishments 
warded off from those who deserve them well : since the blood 
of the Eedeemer, all-sufficient as it is to cleanse the sins of the 
world, saves from wrath only those who repent and turn to Him. 
The power of the doctrine of the Atonement has been felt 
wherever the Gospel has come. It has carried comfort to 
sinners where nothing else could do so. Wherever the conviction 



* Jolm xii. 32. 



366 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay VIII. 



of sin lias been deepest, the power of the Cross has been most 
conspicuous ; and this in the face of objections which it was not 
left to modern times to suggest, against such a punishment for 
such a deliverer. Let it still be preached ; and. our lesson from 
these controversies be that we preach the whole of it, so far as 
Scripture informs and. our mind, comprehends. Let us not so 
exalt the justice of God that we seem to record the harshness of 
a tyrant, and not the device of a Father seeking to bring His 
children back. Let us not so dwell on the love of Christ as to 
forget that one great moral purpose of this sacrifice was to set 
the mark of God's indignation upon sin. Let us not so offer the 
benefits of the Cross to our people as to lose sight of it as a 
means of their crucifying their own flesh and dying to their own 
sins. He bare our sins in His own body on the tree ; He is 
our ransom, our propitiation ; He is made sin for us ; because 
God is just. He laid down His life for the sheep, out of love, 
and God so loved the world that He gave Him for this labour ; 
because God is love : and we are to run with patience the race 
that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher 
of our faith ; because the work of justice and love has restored 
us to our position of moral freedom and moral life, and we must 
live as the redeemed servants of our Lord. 



ESSAY IX. 
SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 



2 B 



CONTENTS OF ESSAY IX. 



Sect. 1. The alleged variations in 
the Interpretation of Scrip- 
ture, p. 371. 

1. Introductory comments and defini- 

tions. 

2. Present attitudes and expectations. 

3. Amount of varying interpretations 

much exaggerated— as shown by, 
first, Ancient and modern versions; 
secondly, Comparison of earlier 
and later expositions. 

4. Literal and historical mode of in-- 

terpretation adopted from the first. 

5. Eecapitulation. 

Sect. 2. The Characteristics op 
Scripture, p. 388. 

6. Differences of interpretation in de- 

tails. 

7. This diversity in unity to be ac- 

counted for — I. By the difference 
of the Bible from every other book. 
■ — II. By the fact that Scripture 
often involves more than one 
meaning : — as shown by (1) Ap- 
plications of prophecy, (2) Types, 
(3) Deeper meanings, even in his- 
torical passages. — III. By the fact 
that Scripture is divinely inspired. 

8. Examination of the assertions of 

opponents concerning the Inspi- 
ration of Scripture, as regards, 
first, the Testimony of Scripture in 
reference to itself; secondly, the 
Statements of the Early Church; 
thirdly, the Subjective testimony. 

9. Affirmative observations upon In- 

spiration — Considerations con- 
cerning, first, its Mode ; secondly, 
its Limits ; thirdly, its Degree. 
10. Eecapitulation. 



Sect. 3. General Eules of Interpre- 
tation, p. 419. 

11. Preliminary comments — Duty of 

Prayer — Necessity for candour. 

12. Eules for the Interpretation of 

Scripture. — 1st Eule — Interpret 
grammatically — Examples. 2nd 
Eule — Interpret historically — Ex- 
amples. 3rd Eule — Interpret con- 
textually — Examples. 4th Eule 
— Interpret minutely — Examples. 
Failure of these rules in cases of 
difficulty. Gradual emergence of 
supplementary rules. 5th Eule — ■ 
Interpret according to the analogy 
of faith. 

13. Concluding observations. 

Sect. 4. The Application of Scrip- 
ture, p. 447. 

14. Application of Scripture considered 

in reference to, I. Prophecy and 
Typology — II. Second and deeper 
meanings— III. Practical and spe- 
cial deductions. 

Sect. 5. Grammar and the laws of 

THE LETTER, p. 455. 

15. Introductory remarks. 

16. General character of the language 

of the New Testament, as com- 
pared with earlier and later Greek. 

17. Peculiarities as shown in details, 

especially in reference to (1) the 
Article, (2) Substantives, (3) Verbs, 
(4) Prepositions, (5) Particles. 

18. Conclusion. 



SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 



§ i. 

% It can hardly be considered strange that great differences of 
opinion should exist respecting the interpretation of Scripture. 
When we consider the nature of the Sacred Writings, their 
number, their variety, the different epochs to which they belong 
and the yast period of time oyer which they extend, we can 
hardly be surprised to find the opinions concerning the interpre- 
tation of the Volume into which they are collected not only to 
be various, but even conflicting. When we turn from the out- 
ward to the inward, and ponder over " that inexhaustible and 
infinite character " of the Sacred Writings, which even the 
better portion of our opponents are not unwilling to concede, 
when we observe that " depth and inwardness," which, it has been 
rightly considered, require something corresponding in the 
interpreter himself, — when we reverentially recognize throughout 
the Volume references alike to the past, the present, and the 
future ; teachings in history only partly realized, lessons in 
prophecy "not yet learned even in theory," germs of truth 
which, we are told, have yet to take root in the world, — when 
we consider all this, are we to wonder that differences of opinion 
exist concerning the interpretation of a volume so ancient, so 
wondrous, and so multiform ? 

It would indeed be strange if it had been otherwise ; it would 
be a phenomenon in the literary or mental history of Christianity 
not easy to account for, if expounders of Scripture had been 
found always accordant in their views ; nay, it may even be 
considered a subject for surprise, though for thankfulness, that 
the differences of opinion about the interpretation of a volume 
such as we have described are not greater than we find them 
to be. 

When, however, we are thus speaking of the differences of 
opinion respecting the interpretation of Scripture (and we are 
using the language of opponents), let us, from the very outset, 
agree to avoid all ambiguities in language. Let us be careful 

2 B 2 



372 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



not to fall into an error which we may fairly impute to those 
with whom we are contending, — the error, to choose the mildest 
expression, of nsing terms of a vague and undefined character, 
and, as the sequel will show, of a somewhat convenient elasti- 
city. What do we mean by differences respecting the interpre- 
tation of Scripture ? We may mean two things. Either we 
may mean that there have been differences of opinion about the 
meanings of the actual words of Scripture, or we may mean that 
there have been differences of opinion about the manner in 
which those meanings have been obtained. We may include 
both if we choose in the same form of words, but in so doing let 
us not fail to apprize the reader, and in conducting the argument 
let us act with fairness. Let us be careful to recognize the clear 
logical difference between these two meanings, and avoid that 
really culpable method of dealing with a momentous subject 
which does not scruple to mix up illustrations or arguments 
derived from one of its aspects with those which really and 
plainly belong to the other. There may have been from the 
very first many methods of interpreting Scripture : allegory 
may have prevailed in one age, mysticism in another ; scholastic 
methods of interpretation may have been succeeded by rhetori- 
cal, and these again may both have given place to methods in 
which grammar and history may have borne a more prominent 
part. All this may have been so, but it still does not necessarily 
follow that the meanings actually assigned to any given text 
have been as manifold or as discordant as the methods which 
may have been adopted to obtain them. The modes and prin- 
ciples of interpretation may have been very different and yet, in 
the main, they may have led to very accordant results. Such a 
probability, however, is now somewhat studiously passed over in 
silence, or mentioned only to be dismissed as unworthy of 
serious consideration. The object, we fear, is to create anxiety 
and uneasiness, to unfix and to unloosen, to awaken a general 
feeling of distrust in current interpretations, and, in the case of 
doctrinal statements and every form of exposition that involves a 
reference to the analogy of faith, to arouse even hostility and 
antagonism. This has been done of late, as we have already 
implied, by a judicious combination of two methods of pro- 
ceeding, — on the one hand, by calling attention to the discord- 
ances of interpretation in a few extreme cases where such 



Essay IX ] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTERPBETATION. 373 

discordance is sure to be a maximum ; on the other, by dwelling 
exclusively on the varieties of the different systems and methods 
of interpretation, and leaving it to be inferred that the results 
arrived at are as various and diversified as the methods by 
which they have been obtained. In a word, such a phenomenon 
as a Catholic interpretation, substantially the same under all 
systems but varied only in details or application, is assumed to 
be an exegetical impossibility. The true state of the case we 
are told is this, — that Scripture has had every possible variety 
of meaning assigned to it, that it has been understood to say 
this to one age and that to another, that all hitherto has been 
conflict or uncertainty. We learn, however, that now a better 
era is dawning ; that a fundamental principle, viz., that Scripture 
has one meaning and one meaning only, has at length clearly 
been made out ; and that a little " free-handling," a few assump- 
tions, and a free use of a so-called "verifying faculty," will 
finally adjust all difficulties and discordances in the interpreta- 
tion of the Book of Life. 

There is obviously something very attractive in all this. 
There is a fascination in the whole procedure that imperfectly- 
disciplined or willingly sceptical minds find it impossible to 
resist. There is the charm of the alleged discovery that criti- 
cism at last has made, the attractiveness of the generalization, 
the variety of the modes of applying the principle so as to meet 
all needs, whether of the reader, the preacher, the missionary, 
"the teacher, or the interpreter, — and then the retrospect, the 
backward look of serene triumph over the accumulated errors 
and prejudices of eighteen long Christian centuries, all chased 
away by the brightness of this second Keformation and the 
" burst of intellectual life " that is at last becoming visible above 
the clouded horizon of Scriptural interpretation. One topmost 
stone and the monument of our exegetical successes must be 
pronounced complete. Philosophy and Theology claim of us, 
we are told, as of value to themselves a history of the past. Be 
it so. Let us take the pen of the historian and sit down and 
trace the record of our own mental supremacy in a history of 
the prejudices and errors of the Exegesis of the past. Let us 
show by this tacit comparison how "great names must be 
accounted small," how few ever "bent their mind to interrogate 
the meaning of words," how men who were accounted bene- 



374 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



factors of the human race have yet only left to us the heritage 
of erring fancies and party-bias, — let us write the history of all 
this littleness, confusion, and bondage to the letter, and the 
fabric of our own greatness, harmony, and intellectual freedom 
will appear by the contrast only the more stately and unique. 

Such is the dream of the present. Such, stated in no exaggerated 
or unkindly terms, is the course which men whose general good- 
ness and high principles we have no cause to doubt or deny are 
now inviting us to follow. What are we to say of all this ? The 
comment rises to the lips, but we suppress it. We may feel, 
perhaps, that as in Corinth of old so now in nineteenth-century 
England, vain knowledge may puff up, yet remembering that 
" love edifieth," we sit by silent and wondering, even though the 
fire is kindling within, and silence is becoming a pain and a grief 
to us. At first perhaps we prepare to answer the call to join the 
wise and tranquil few, who, knowing that the Eternal Spirit has 
been ever present with the Church, and that what things were 
written aforetime were written, not for our contempt but for our 
learning, smile pensively at these childish exultations and straw- 
woven crowns, and see in them only one more of the premature 
triumphs that have been claimed for some shifting form of the 
errors or heresies of the time. We feel tempted to join this 
quiet company, and calmly to smile as they alone can smile 
whose feet stand within the sheltering walls of the City of God, 
and whose faith is that which was not only delivered but handed 
down to the saints in each age of the Church of Christ. What 
can we do but smile, when we recognize old quibbles and diffi- 
culties all mustered up again, disguised in new trappings, and 
arranged in new combinations, — but yet the same, the very 
same that have been dispersed a hundred times over, and which 
the very generation to which we now belong will see dispersed 
again, though it may be to ally themselves finally with powers 
and principles of which at present they are only permitted to 
act as the scout and the courier? 

But with this last thought the smile fades away. When we 
remember that the forms of error which of late have been re- 
appearing among us may belong, consciously or unconsciously, to 
the great apostacy of the future, — when we observe how they 
instinctively associate themselves with masked or avowed deny- 
ings of the Divinity of our blessed Lord, and of the full efficacy 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 375 



of His sacrifice, — when we mark how their yanities and self-con- 
fidences bear a strange family likeness to that Pelagian pride in 
the perfectibility of our corrupted nature which tears open the 
wounds of a crucified Lord more heartlessly than the hands that 
first inflicted them, — when we ponder over that puffed up and 
unyoked spirit of the day that is now calling on us to clear 
away the remains of dogmas and controversies, and when we 
see, as we must see, with a shudder, that it is but the harbinger 
of him who is to set himself against everything " that is called 
God or that is worshipped" (2 Thess. ii. 4), — then it does seem 
our duty to play our part in the great controversy, to quit our- 
selves like men, and to strive with all Christian earnestness, 
with stern brow yet with true and loving heart, to rescue the 
endangered souls of our own time and age, and to bring them 
back into the City of God. 

2. The position of the defender of the faith in the present day 
is that of one whose home and citizenship is in the City " that 
lieth foursquare," whose builder and whose maker is God. The 
storm of battle has often raved round those massive walls, wild 
rout and turmoil have often striven to shake those solid gates. 
Passwords have been tried ; treachery has played its dastardly 
part, — but all stands firm and sure. The rising sun that smites 
on the broad front of those fair walls and towers, beholds them 
as stately in their strength and their beauty as they were ever 
of old ; the shadows they cast when day declines are as many 
and as lengthened as they were of yore. Who within would 
wish to see a stone displaced, who would fain see one battlement 
laid low? Perhaps none who are really and truly within the 
circuit of those sheltering walls. But there are voices without 
that we know full well, voices of those with whom we have dwelt 
as friends, whose God has been our God, and whose Lord has 
been our Lord, — men who went from among us on strange mis- 
sions, and are come back to tell us strange tidings, and to bid 
us do strange deeds. That beleaguering host whose flaunting 
standards we can see on every wooded knoll around, and whose 
open or covert assaults our fathers and forefathers have expe- 
rienced so often, and resisted so successfully and so long, — that 
motley eager host they tell us is not composed of foes, but of 
friends and well-wishers, changed by civilization and the glory of 
human development, eager to meet us as kindred and brothers 



376, 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



if we will but remove the envious barriers that separate us, 
relics of a religious feudalism, as they term it, long passed away. 
Shall creeds separate brothers ? Shall doctrines divide those 
whom unity of race and shared civilizations plainly declare to 
be one and inseparable ? Shall we churlishly strive any longer 
to stint the growth of the ideal man? Shall the orient and 
glowing future be darkened with jealousies of sects and rivalries 
of religions ? " We are couriers," they impetuously cry aloud ; 
" ambassadors, friends of both, friends of truth, friends of Christ. 
Unbar, then, these envious gates ; down with these unfriendly 
walls ; let us learn from each other the great lesson of mutual 
concessions, and so at last realize the great hope of the future, 
the fabled restitution of theologians, and at last, all in fraternal 
triumph, merge into the one great family of Truth and of Love." 
Such are the voices now sounding in our ears ; voices that the 
young and the generous, as well as the godless and the world- 
worn, give ear to with ready sympathy. But shall the true 
defenders of the ark of their God, that ark of the New Covenant 
wherein lie the written words of life, yield it and themselves up 
to this stratagem which one " whose time is short " has put into 
the hearts of unconscious instruments ? Never. God defend us 
from such fearful, such frantic disloyalty ! God indeed forbid 
that, in any sense, however modified, it should hereafter be the 
boast of the spirits of perdition, that it was with the City of the 
hills even worse than it was with a city of the plain, — that the 
host wound round it, that sounding brass brayed forth, and eager 
voices shouted, and that, mined by traitorous occupants, wall 
and tower fell flat as those of Jericho, and fell never to rise 
again ! 

Such, it would seem, is the allegory of our own times. — Such 
no overdrawn picture of the exact attitude in which true be- 
lievers now appear to stand. We are called upon by specious 
words to give up every defence which the mercies of God have 
permitted to be reared up around us ; and our reward is to be 
a bondage, to which the bondage of the worst age of the Church 
of Kome would be found light and endurable. There is no 
bondage like that of scepticism. There is no intolerance more 
intolerable than that of those who are themselves the servants 
of a hard master. It may be a bondage different to bondages of 
the past in its mode of being brought about, but it is no less 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 377 



complete and coercive. It is the bondage of contempt and of 
scorn. Do we donbt it ? Are there not writings of our own 
times, writings that claim scholars and ministers of the Gospel 
for their authors, that show, only too painfully, what Ave have to 
expect if we allow such to be leaders of thought among us, if wall 
and tower are to be thrown down to let such men come in and 
have the rule over us? Granted that there may be numerous 
exceptions, that there may be those who, even while we are 
compelled to number them among our secret foes, we may be 
free to own have many kindly and elevated sympathies, — granted 
that there may be silver sounds heard amid all this clanging 
brass, yet does not common sense, does not history itself tell us, 
that the voices of this better part will be the first to be silenced, 
that their kindly idealisms will be rudely swept aside to make 
room for varied and repulsive forms of aggressive materialism ; 
that they will themselves be the earliest victims of the Frank- 
enstein their own hands have helped to shape into existence ? 
Let the thoughtful reader pause only for a moment to muse 
upon some of the present aspects of modern society as revealed 
by, as commented on, and sometimes even as defended by, our 
public papers, and then answer to his own heart what he thinks 
must be the issue if laxity of religious thought seriously increase 
among us. Vice will borrow its excuses from scepticism ; law- 
lessness of act will become the natural sequel of lawlessness of 
thought ; and the end will be, no noble, colossal, heavenward- 
looking, ideal man, but a grovelling satyr, the slave of his own 
appetites, and the vassal of his own abominations. 

But we must pass on to, or rather return to, the subject which 
lies more immediately before us. Enough, perhaps, has been said 
to show that there can be no safe compromise, no over-liberal 
parleying with those without, be they the kindliest or the most 
silver-tongued of the children of men. The believer of the pre- 
sent day must put himself in the attitude of an opponent, kind 
indeed it may be, and large in heart and sympathies, ready and 
anxious to rescue, prompt to spare, — yet an opponent ; one who, 
when asked to give up old principles, may not, for the sake of 
others, wholly refuse to hear the nature of the demand, but who 
hears it with a full knowledge of the true attitude and posture of 
those by whom it is urged. We are asked especially to give up 
old principles in the interpretation of the Word of God. Some 



378 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



concession, we are warned, is almost imperatively demanded. We 
ask why. We bid our opponents state their reasons for a de- 
mand so sweeping and comprehensive. One of these reasons we 
have heard already, and we have already observed that it in- 
volves an ambiguity. We are told that the differences respect- 
ing the interpretation of Scripture are such that they show that 
prejudice rather than principle is the true mainspring of Scrip- 
tural exegesis. Pictures are held up to us of the successive 
schools of interpreters, their follies and their fallacies, their 
bondage to the influences of the age in which they lived, their 
hostility to all intellectual freedom. Be it so ; but is it proved 
that the interpretations which they actually advanced are as 
varied as their methods of procedure are so confidently alleged 
to be ? Whether a great deal too much has not been said even 
on this subject, whether the diversities or antagonisms of early 
systems of explaining Scripture have not greatly been exagge- 
rated, is a question into which here we will not enter. Our 
inquiry is simply, whether the differences of interpretation are at 
all more than the nature and importance of the subject-matter 
would lead us to expect, and whether a great deal that has been 
said about the differences of interpretation does not wholly be- 
long to the differences of the modes of procedure. It is, of 
course, quite natural and conceivable that the spirit of each age 
may have swayed teacher and preacher more to this method than 
to that ; that passing controversies may have left their traces, and 
that declarations which seemed of great moment to one gene- 
ration may not have been found equally so to another. All this 
may be so, but with this we are now only partially concerned. 
If we were endeavouring to form an estimate of the variety of 
deductions that have been made from the words of Scripture in 
different ages of the Church, or were discussing the varying ap- 
plications that the same sentiment has been found to bear, much 
that has been said on the subject might pass unchallenged. We 
should probably account for these varied forms of application or 
deduction on different principles to our opponents ; we might 
see, for instance, in all this diversity of application only evi- 
dences of " the manifold wisdom of God," and of that hidden 
life with all its varying aptitudes to human needs which we 
know to be in the Written Word. Our opponents, on the con- 
trary, might see in it only evidences of the folly, ignorance, 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 



379 



prejudice, or bad faith of successive expositors : we might differ 
widely in our manner of accounting for these different applica- 
tions of Scripture, but we might to a great extent agree as to their 
number and variety. This, however, is not the question between 
us. What we are now told is not merely that the applications or 
adaptations of Scripture have been very varied, but that the dif- 
ference of actual meaning assigned to the words of Scripture 
by expositors of different ages is so suspiciously excessive, that 
the duty of purging our minds from past prejudices is impera- 
tive, and that Scripture must henceforth be explained on 
sounder principles. The one true meaning must be discovered, 
and adopted, the many disregarded or rejected. The first question 
between us, then, is a question of amount and of degree. Our 
opponents assert that Scripture has had so many meanings, often 
too so hostile and suicidal, that it presents one meaning to the 
Frenchman, another to the German, and another to the English- 
man. We are asked if this is not in itself an utter absurdity, 
and if it is not time to enter upon some more reasonable course. 
That assumed reasonable course is sketched out ; canons of inter- 
pretation are laid down ; appeals are not wanting to current 
prejudices ; disinclination or inaptitude for that wrestling with 
the Word of God which marked earlier and better ages of the 
Church is dealt gently with ; disregard of the great exegetical 
writings of the past is not only excused but commended ; we are 
advised wholly to trust to ourselves, and are cheered by the 
assurance that "if we will only confine ourselves to the plain 
meaning of words and the study of their context," we may bene- 
ficially dispense with all the expository labours of the past or of 
the present. Such is the modern mode of dealing with one of 
the most momentous subjects of our own times, and with which 
personal holiness and man's salvation are more intimately con- 
nected than with any other that can be specified. Is it unfair 
to characterize the whole as nothing more than positive asser- 
tions, resting on ambiguities of language, or on the assumed 
identity of things logically different, and supported by covert 
appeals to the idleness, vanity, and self-sufficiency of the day ? 

3. We revert, however, to the preliminary question before us. 
Are the differences of meaning that have been assigned to 
Scripture such in amount as they are said to be, and such 
as to demand the rehabilitation of Scriptural interpretation 



380 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Ebsay IX. 



which is now proposed ? Are they such that, as it has been 
asserted, Scripture bears an utterly different meaning to men 
of different ages and nations ? Assuredly not. No statement 
seems more completely at variance with our general Christian 
consciousness ; no assertion can more readily be disproved when 
we come to details. These, however, can never be made 
palatable to the general reader, nor are they commonly con- 
vincing, unless carried out much further than would be possible 
in an Essay of this nature. To prove clearly and distinctly that 
there is not this great amount of discordance in the interpreta- 
tions of Scripture, it would be necessary to compare, and that 
not in a few selected cases, but in a portion of Scripture of some 
length, the results arrived at by commentators of different ages 
and countries. Less than this would fail to convince ; for in the 
case of a few prerogative instances, which would be all we should 
have space for, the feeling is ever apt to arise that lists equally 
telling and convincing could be made out on the other side. We 
have, therefore, as it would seem, little left us than to meet 
assertion by counter-assertion, and leave each reader to ascer- 
tain for himself on which side the truth lies, — whether the 
differences in the interpretations of Scripture (except in a com- 
paratively few cases) have been thus excessive, or whether there 
has not been a very considerable amount of accordance in 
general matters, and variations only in details. Those who are 
acquainted with the subject, and have had experience in refer- 
ring to expository treatises belonging to different ages and 
countries, will have no difficulty in pronouncing which is the 
true state of the case, and whether assertion or counter-assertion 
is to be deemed most worthy of credit. As, however, the 
general reader is not always likely to have it in his power to de- 
cide between the two statements, and as the mere denial of the 
major in an opponent's syllogism is never satisfactory without 
some reasons being assigned, we will mention one or two general 
considerations which, though not amounting to a positive proof 
that Scripture has not been interpreted as diversely as has 
been asserted, may yet render it probable that such is the 
case, and supply some grounds for the counter-assertion above 
alluded to. 

In the first place, we may perhaps with justice appeal to the 
Ancient Versions, especially when combined with some of the 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION". 381 



best Modern Versions, as tending to show that the amount of 
variety in interpretation is not so great as has been imagined. 
Let us take, for example, seven of the best Ancient Versions of 
the New Testament — the Syriac (Peshito), the Old Latin (as far 
as it has been ascertained), the Vulgate, the Gothic, the Coptic, 
the Ethiopic (Pell Piatt's), and the Armenian, and with them 
let us associate the Authorized English Version and Luther's 
German Version, and then proceed to inquire what general 
opinion a comparison of the characteristics of these Ver- 
sions leads us to form as to the question of a prevailing 
unanimity, or a prevailing discordance, of interpretation, as far 
as it can be evinced by a Version. Now, admitting on the one 
hand that there may be such relations existing between some of 
these Versions, that each can hardly be considered an inde- 
pendent witness, — that the Vulgate, for example, is but an 
amended form of the Old Latin, that the Ethiopic sometimes 
seems to indicate dependence on the Syriac, that the Armenian 
was retouched at a late period, and possibly that the Vulgate 
was in the hands of the reviser, — admitting all this, and making 
also a deduction for the influence of the Vulgate, and, perhaps, 
to some small extent, of the Syriac over the two Modern Ver- 
sions, we may still most justly point to these nine Versions, of 
ages and countries so different and distant, as evincing an 
unanimity in their renderings, not only of general but even of 
disputed passages, far beyond what could have been expected 
a priori, or can in any way be accounted for by the admissions 
we have already made. If it be said this must necessarily be the 
case in Versions which are all strictly literal in their character, 
these two remarks may be made by way of rejoinder : first, that 
the very fact that nine Versions of different ages and countries 
should agree in this important feature, that not one of them 
should in any respect be paraphrastic,* and that some, as for in- 
stance the Old Latin, should almost be barbarous in their exact- 
ness, does seem to show that not only in later ages, but even in 
the earliest, the very letter of Scripture was regarded as of the 
utmost importance, and treated with the most scrupulous accu- 



* It may be noticed that we have 
specified the Ethiopic Version as that 
edited by Mr. Pell Piatt. The Ethiopic 
found in Walton's ' Polyglott ' often de- 



generates into a paraphrase, especially 
in difficult passages. The Peshito is 
sometimes idiomatically free, but never 
paraphrastic. 



382 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



racy. Where Versions were so punctilious, it does not seem 
natural to expect that interpretation would have been very wild 
or varied, except when it was allowed to degenerate into appli- 
cations, or busied itself with minutiae and details. Secondly, it 
may be added, that even the most literal Versions involve inter- 
pretation in the fullest sense of the word, especially in the 
opinions they necessarily express on the connexion of clauses, 
and in the renderings of words of disputed meaning. A good 
translation is often the very best of commentaries, and it was a 
full appreciation of this fact that led a venerated scholar and 
divine when asked what he judged to be the best commentary 
on the New Testament to name the Vulgate. The general 
unanimity of the early as well as later Versions is thus a testi- 
mony, at any rate, of some little weight, in favour of the belief 
that the amount and degree of differences of interpretation in 
earlier, when compared ^vith later ages, have been much 
overstated. 

Still it may be urged, that whatever may be the case with 
Versions, it is perfectly certain that, in the results at which com- 
mentators of different ages have arrived, there is a vast amount 
not only of variety but of antagonism. In reference to a certain 
number of difficult passages this may be true ; if, however, this be 
intended as a general statement referring to Scriptural interpreta- 
tion at large, it must be regarded as open to considerable doubt. 
Let us endeavour to show this in the following way. It is said 
that there is an increasing agreement between recent German 
expositors, and it is also implied that the results at which they 
have arrived are far more consonant with truth than any that 
have preceded. Of these expositors, De Wette and Meyer are 
often mentioned with respect by modern writers. Let us agree 
to take them as two fair representatives of the exegesis of our 
own times. Let us now go to a remote past, and choose two 
names to compare with them as representatives of the interpre- 
tation of a former day. Let us take for example Chrysostom and 
Theodoret. They belonged to an age sufficiently distant ; they 
shared in its feelings and sympathies ; they took part in its con- 
troversies. They were not specially in advance of their own 
times. One of them had, what many will judge to be not 
always compatible with calmness of interpretation, a strongly 
rhetorical bias ; the other did not escape some suspicion of 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 383 



heresy. Such as they were, or have been judged to be, let us 
compare them, in some portion of Scripture (St. Paul's Epistles 
for example), on which all have written, with the two modern 
commentators above specified, and state what seem to be the 
general results of the comparison. We naturally set out with 
the expectation of finding very great diversity. If all that has 
been said on this subject be true ; if the fourteen centuries 
which lie between the two pairs of men be as plentifully diversi- 
fied as they are said to have been by changes in methods of 
interpretation, — changes, too, asserted to have been gradually 
leading us up to more perfect principles of interpretation, — we 
must expect to find a very great amount of discordance between 
them. Yet what do we discover when we actually institute the 
comparison ? To speak very generally, it would seem to be as 
follows. There will be found in the first place a considerable 
amount of variety in matters of detail, the older interpreters 
more commonly giving what may be termed an objective refer- 
ence to words and expressions, where the two modern writers 
will be found agreeing to adopt a more subjective view. In the 
second place, differences will be observed in the treatment of 
doctrinal passages ; the older interpreters usually expounding 
them with reference to the great controversies of their own times, 
and to points of polemical detail; the modern interpreters 
usually trying to generalize, and not unfrequently to dilute and 
explain away, whenever doctrinal statements appear to assume 
a very distinctive or definite aspect. In a word, the tendency 
of the two earlier writers is to what is objective and special ; of 
the two later to what is subjective and general. These distinc- 
tions will certainly be observed, especially in the two depart- 
ments above alluded to — matters of detail and matters of 
doctrine, and may perhaps be deemed sufficient to justify the 
recognition of some clear lines of demarcation between earlier 
and more modern interpretation. When, however, these points 
of difference are set aside, there will be found remaining in the 
great bulk of Scripture, and in all general passages, an amount 
of accordance so striking and so persistent, that it can only be 
accounted for by the assumption that these four able expositors 
all instinctively recognized one common and sound principle of 
Scriptural interpretation. The precise nature of that principle 
will become apparent as we advance further in our investiga-^ 
tions. 



384 



AIDS TO FAITH, 



[Essay IX. 



4. Believing that these remarks are just, and capable of being 
fully substantiated, we may claim to have at least made it pro- 
bable, that the extent of the alleged differences in the interpre- 
tation of Scripture between our own times and the past has been 
unduly exaggerated. Here we might pause as far as the present 
portion of our subject is concerned. It may be well, however, 
to take one step further, and show, what fairly can be shown, 
that from the very earliest times, the literal and historical 
method of interpreting Scripture, now so often claimed as the 
distinguishing characteristic of our own times, has ever been 
recognized in the Church as the true method on man's side of 
interpreting the Oracles of God. On this subject, owing to the 
small amount of exact knowledge, even among more professed 
students, and to the currency which a few popular comments 
readily obtain among those whose acquaintance with these 
ancient writers must ever be second-hand, many questionable 
statements are allowed to pass unchallenged. It would, perhaps, 
seem hopeless to attempt to say one word in favour of the method 
of interpretation adopted by Origen. Every writer of the day 
uses that great name to illustrate what is to be regarded as wild 
and fanciful. And yet what is the opinion which any real 
student of Origen's exegetical works would certainly give us ? 
What, for instance, would be the statement of an unbiassed 
scholar who had thoughtfully read what remain to us of his 
commentaries on St. Matthew and St. John? Would he not tell 
us that in these portions of his works, whatever may have been 
his theories elsewhere, Origen rarely failed to give the first 
place to the simple and literal interpretation, and that his diver- 
gences into allegory far more often deserve the na?ne of applica- 
tions than of actual expositions? Allegory seems really and 
primarily to have commended itself to Origen as the readiest 
method of dealing with those difficulties which his acute mind 
almost too quickly recognized as transcending human reason 
and explanation. The remark of one who has carefully read 
and well used one portion of his works — the expositor Liicke — 
is probably not wholly unjust, that a tendency to rationalize, of 
which Origen himself was unconscious, may to a great degree 
account for his bias to allegory and mystical modes of interpre- 
tation, whenever the difficulties of the passage seemed to rise 
above the usual level. Where there was no necessity for this, 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 385 



where there were no historical details which seemed at issue 
with human reason, or with received views of morality and justice, 
Origen shows plainly enough what method of interpreting the 
Word of God he deemed to be the true and correct one. We may 
abundantly verify this from his extant writings. We may also 
further judge from- fragments preserved in Catenae (his scattered 
comments, for example, on the Epistle to the Ephesians) what 
were really his leading principles ; and we may fairly ask if 
they were so very different from the principles of interpreting 
Scripture which all parties, friends and foes, seem now in the 
main agreed in regarding as reasonable and correct. 

We might extend these remarks almost indefinitely by dis- 
cussing the true nature of the leading methods of interpreting 
Scripture — these methods which we are told are so strangely 
discordant — in the case of each one of the more distinguished 
expositors of different ages of the Church. We might show, for 
instance, that no amount of strong polemical bias prevented 
Cyril of Alexandria from expounding portions of Scripture (the 
Gospel of St. J ohn for example) with what, even in our own 
critical days, must be called felicity and success. We might 
make it clear that the rhetorical turn of Chrysostom's mind 
never prevented him from fully discussing verbal distinctions, 
analysing the meanings of prepositions, estimating the force of 
compound forms, and so placing before his reader as calm, clear, 
and persuasive a view of the passage under consideration as we 
may find in the best specimens of modern interpretation. We 
might turn to the West, and in spite of some growing disposition 
to admit more generally those studied distinctions in reference 
to threefold or fourfold senses of Scripture which Origen be- 
queathed to his successors, we might still appeal to Augustine 
as a writer, whose special interpretations can never be spoken of 
without respect, and whose perceptions of the inner mind of 
Scripture, and of the true bearing of its deeper declarations, 
remain to this very hour unequalled for their perspicuity and 
truth. Nay, we might even show that the studied recognition of 
several senses in Scripture was rather a form oi application than 
of definite and genuine interpretation. We might even go 
onward, and pass into those ages which have become very bywords 
for perverted interpretation of Scripture — the ages of the earlier 
and later schoolmen — and even in them, amid subtle and narrow 

2 c 



386 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



logic on this side, and a wild and speculative idealism on that, 
we should have no difficulty in showing that there was a via media 
of sound principles of interpretation which was both recognized 
and proceeded on. It is perfectly true that at this period not 
only the earlier threefold and fourfold senses of Scripture were 
re-asserted and re-applied, but that even sevenfold, eightfold,*" 
and, if we choose to press the words of Erigena, infinite senses of 
Scripture were admitted by mediaeval interpreters; but it is 
also perfectly true and demonstrable, from passing comments 
and cautions, that the simple, plain, and literal sense was always 
admitted to be the basis, and that other forms of interpretation 
were commonly regarded more in the light of deductions and 
applications. The rule laid down by Aquinas was clear enough, 
and expresses fairly the general feeling of the interpreters of his 
own time, — "In omnibus quae Scriptura tradit, pro fundamento 
est tenenda Veritas historica, et desuper spirituales expositiones 
fabricandae" (Swnma Theol. Pars 1, Qu. 102, Art. 1): the 
literal and historical came first, the rest were forms of applica- 
tion. It is not, however, merely from passing comments, or 
from asserted, but really neglected principles, but from the 
general tenor of the better expositions of the time that the full 
force of the above remarks will best be felt. Let a fair and. 
intelligent reader consent to give a little time to some of the 
interpretations of difficult passages in St. Paul's Epistles as put 
forward by Lombard or Aquinas, and then tell us his impres- 
sions. We will venture to state what his report would be, — that 
it was a matter of surprise to him, in an age which has ever been 
a very byword for subtleties and pedantry, to find such a large 
amount of reasonable and intelligent interpretation of the Word 
of God. 

5. To gather up, then, our preceding comments, may we not 
fairly say —first, that much that has been said about the extent 
and variety of interpretations of Scripture is exaggerated; 
secondly, that even the various methods of interpretation — 



* The enumeration may amuse the 
reader : (1) Sensus literalis vel histori- 
cus ; (2) allegoricus vel paraholicus ; 
(3) tropologicus vel etymologicus ; (4) 
anagogicus vel analogiciis ; (5) typicus 
vel exemplaris; (6) anaphoricus vel 



proportionalis ; (7) boarcademicus rel 
primordialis (i. e. quo ipsa principia re- 
rum comparantur cum beatitudine seter- 
na et tota dispensatione salutis) : see 
Bibl. Max. Pair. torn. xvii. p. 315 seq, 
(Lugd. 1677). 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 387 



which, when it serves a purpose, our opponents regard as mean- 
ing the same as the results arrived at — may in many, perhaps 
most, cases be regarded as modes of applying or expanding the 
primary sense, rather than of eliciting substantive and inde- 
pendent meanings; thirdly, not only that God has never left 
Himself without a witness, and that in every age there have 
been a few faithful representatives of faithful principles of inter- 
pretation, but further, that there has been from the very earliest 
times, not only in theory but in practice, a plain, literal, and his- 
torical mode of interpreting Scripture ; and finally, that there 
may be traced so great an identity in the results arrived at by 
successive interpreters, that we have full warrant for using the 
term Catholic in reference to a far larger portion of what may 
be considered current orthodox interpretations than the mere 
popular disputant is at all aware of? Let the inquiry be put 
with all simplicity to those, whether in this country or abroad, 
who have made Ancient Versions and expositors their study, and, 
however different their opinions may be on other points, on this 
they will be agreed, — that there is such a concordia discors in the 
results obtained, that in very many passages we can produce 
interpretations which may stand even the test of Vincent of 
Lerins, and may justly be termed the traditional interpretations 
of the Church of Christ. 

We know, of course, how these statements both have been 
and will be disposed of by the impatient and the confident. It 
will be said, probably, that granting merely for the sake of argu- 
ment, that there is that species of concord of interpretation in 
many important passages, it has been only the result of tradi- 
tional prejudices from which it is now our duty to make our- 
selves free. It will be added that any form of such consent is in 
itself suspicious, and that if our intuitions run counter to it we 
are at once to listen to the voice of reason within us, and reject 
the interpretation of every Church and every age of the world, 
if it does not approve itself to our own convictions. Brave and 
buoyant in our own self-esteem, we shall perhaps never pause to 
ask how far the so-called voice of reason may not be the voice 
of prejudice, — how far convictions may not be merely the results 
of secret influences within, and of some half-consciousness that 
what we reject bears aspects or involves conclusions sadly at 
variance with our habits or our propensions. We may at last 

2 c 2 



388 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



perceive that it is the Word of God in its dreaded function of 
searching the intents of the heart that is now being brought 
home to us, and in our very dismay and perplexity we may have 
felt forced to come to the determination that every interpreta- 
tion, be it of Church or of Council, that makes us thus tremble 
for ourselves, both must be and shall be either rejected or 
ignored. Thus, perhaps, will all that has been urged be disposed 
of. Be it so. There is a proud and confident spirit abroad ; there 
is a love of self, self in its more purely intellectual aspects, 
above measure painful and revolting ; there are forms bearing 
the names of moral goodness and freedom, and yet involving 
the denial of the essence of both, that bring an Apostle's pre- 
dictions sadly and strangely to our thoughts, — and we feel it 
must be so, and that there are some whose ears must be and 
will be turned away from the truth. Yet there are others — 
especially the young, the ardent, the inexperienced — to whom 
what has been thus far urged may not have been urged in vain. 
To them our arguments are mainly addressed, to them we are 
speaking, for them we are pleading. " Young man, true in 
heart and earnest in spirit, honest searcher, anxious yet prayerful 
inquirer, let not thy eyes be holden by proud, unkindly hands, 
judge for thyself. Believe not every one that tells thee that the 
records of the Church are scribbled over with every form of 
strange, idle, and conventional interpretation of the Word of 
God. Judge for thyself, but judge righteous judgment. If 
there be fuller concords in the voices of the past than thou hast 
believed, close not thine ears to them because as yet they sound 
not fully harmonious to thee. Wait, ponder, pray: ere long, 
perchance thine own voice will spontaneously blend with what 
thou hearest ; thou thyself, by the grace of God, may at length 
hear sounding round thee, and by thine own experience make 
others hear with thee, the holy accords and harmonies of the 
deep things of the Word of God." 

§ 2. 

6. We now pass naturally onward to another portion, or rather 
to another, and that at first sight an opposed, aspect of our 
present subject. Hitherto we have shown not only that the 
amount of the differences of interpretation has been clearly over- 
estimated, but even that the true and honest method of inter- 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION". 



389 



preting tlie Word of God — the literal, historical, and gram- 
matical — has been recognized in every age, and that the results 
are to be seen in the agreement on numberless passages of im- 
portance that may be found in expositors of all periods ; in other 
words, that the illuminating grace of God has ever been with 
His Church. This being so, it is but waste of time to consider 
the causes that have been alleged for the existence of the multi- 
tude of interpretations, when that multitude has been proved to 
a great extent to be imaginary. We will not, then, pause to 
discuss the amount of varying interpretations that have been 
ascribed, whether, on the one hand, to rhetoric and desires to 
edify, or, on the other, to party feeling and efforts to wrest the 
meanings of Scripture to different sides. We deny not that 
both have produced some effect on the interpretation of Scrip- 
ture. We do not deny that the Christian preacher may have 
often urged meanings that do not lie in the words, and that 
these may have been adopted by contemporaries and echoed and 
reproduced by those that have followed. We deny not, again, 
that the natural meaning of many texts may have been per- 
verted by prejudice on one side or other, and that traces of this 
may still remain in some of the current interpretations of our 
own times. All this we deny not, but, on the other hand, we 
confidently assert that the effects have been limited, and that 
all the assumptions that the contrary has been the case fall with 
the fallen assumption, viz., that the discordance of Scripture- 
interpretations is excessive, and that all methods hitherto 
adopted have been uncertain or untrustworthy. 

But we now come to what at first sight may appear a reversed 
aspect of our subject. While, on the one hand, we consider it 
proved that there has been from the first a substantial agree- 
ment, not only in the mode of interpreting Scripture, but in 
many of its most important details, we are equally prepared, on 
the other hand, to recognize the existence of great differences of 
opinion about the meanings of individual passages, and even in 
reference to the methods by which these meanings may be best 
obtained. No one who has had any experience in the interpre- 
tation of Scripture can with honesty assert the contrary. It 
may be true that in the great majority of all the more important 
passages careful consideration will show that what logic, 
grammar, and a proper valuation of the significance of words, 



390 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



seem to indicate as the principal and primary meaning of the 
passage, will be found to have been recognized as such ages 
before, and has substantially held its ground to our own times, — 
still experience teaches us that there is a very large residuum of 
less important passages in which interpreters break up into 
groups, and in which the expositor of the nineteenth century has 
to yield to the guidance of principles perhaps but recently 
recognized, yet, from their justice and truth, of an influence and 
authority that cannot be gainsaid. There are, indeed, even a 
few cases, but confessedly unimportant, where the modern in- 
terpreter has to oppose himself to every early Version and every 
patristic commentator, and where it is almost certain he is right 
in so doing. Let the connexion of the concluding portion of 
Gal. iv. 12 be cited as an example. Such instances are, how- 
ever, very rare, and need hardly be mentioned, save to show 
that principles can never be dispensed with, and that, though 
we yield all becoming deference to interpretations in which an- 
tiquity is mainly agreed, we yet by no means pledge ourselves 
unreservedly to accept them. All these differences, then, in the 
interpretations of individual passages, we frankly recognize ; nay 
more, we may in many cases admit that there are clearly de- 
fined differences in the method of interpreting — perhaps an ex- 
tended context. Last of all, it is not to be suppressed that 
there is a somewhat large class of passages so far-reaching, so 
inclusive, and so profound, that not only are all the better in^ 
terpretations remarkable for their varied character, but for their 
appearing, perhaps each one, to represent a portion of the true 
meaning, but scarcely, all of them together, what our inner soul 
seems to tell us is the complete and ultimate meaning of the 
words that meet the outward eye. 

7. We are thus admitting the existence of diversity of interpre- 
tation, especially in individual passages and details, as readily 
and as frankly as we have argued for the existence of a far 
greater prevailing unity both in the meanings themselves, and 
the methods of arriving at them in all more important passages, 
than is willingly recognized by popular writers. The question 
then naturally arises, how do we account for these apparently 
reversed aspects ? How can we in the same breath assert pre- 
vailing unity, and yet admit diversity? How do we account 
for a state of things which in Sophocles or Plato would be pro- 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION". 



391 



nounced incredible u or absurd ? Our answer is of a threefold 
nature. We account for this by observing, First, that the Bible 
is different to every other book in the world, and that its inter- 
pretation may well be supposed to involve many difficulties and 
diversities. Secondly, that the words of Scripture in many parts 
have more than one meaning and application. Thirdly, that 
Scripture is inspired, and that though written by man, it is a 
revelation from God, and adumbrates His eternal plenitudes 
and perfections. 

On each one of these forms of the answer we will make a few 
observations. 

L On the first, perhaps, little more need be said than has 
been incidentally brought forward in earlier parts of this Essay. 
It is, indeed, most unreasonable to compare, even in externals, 
the Bible with any other book in the world. A collection of 
many treatises, written in many different styles, and at many 
different ages, can never be put side by side with the works of 
a single author, nor will any canons of interpretation which may 
be just and reasonable in the latter case, be necessarily applica- 
ble to the former. What, for instance, can really be more 
strange than to lay down the rule that we are to interpret the 
Scripture like any other book, when, in the merest rough and 
outside view, the Scripture presents such striking differences 
from any book that the world has ever seen ? The strangeness 
becomes greater when we look inward, and observe the varied 
nature of the contents, — prose and poetry, history and prophecy, 
teachings of an incarnate God, and exhortations and messages of 
men to men. How very unreasonable to insist on similar modes 
of interpreting what our very opponents rightly term " a world 
by itself " — a world from which foreign influences are to be ex- 
eluded — and any other documents or records that have come 
from the hand of man ! How can we with justice require that 
amount of exegetical agreement in the former case that might 
naturally be looked for and demanded in the latter ? How very 
reasonable, on the other hand, is the supposition that in the 
interpretation of a collection of treatises of such varied and 
momentous import we may have to recognize both unities and 
diversities, — unities as due to the illuminating grace of the one 
and self-same Spirit similarly vouchsafed to all meek and holy 
readers of Scripture in every age of the Church, — diversities as 



392 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[E.^say IX. 



due to the profundity and variety that must ever mark the out- 
pourings of the manifold wisdom of God ! It seems, indeed, idle 
to dwell upon what is thus obvious and self-evident ; but it has 
been rendered necessary by what we are obliged to term the 
unfairness of our opponents. At one time, when the argument 
seems to require it, the Scripture is considered as a single book, 
to be dealt with like other books, subject to the same critical 
canons, amenable to the same laws of interpretation : at another 
time it emerges to view as a collection of records, unconnected 
and discordant, which it is desirable to keep thus divided, that 
they may be the more readily disposed of ; and, whenever it may 
seem necessary, the more successfully pitted against one another 
in contradictions and antagonisms. 

II. We pass onward to our second form of answer. Here we 
find ourselves, as might have been foreseen, in undisguised con- 
flict with the sceptical writers of our own time. That Scripture 
has one meaning, and one meaning only, is their fundamental 
axiom : it is seen to be, and felt to be, one of the keys of their 
position. When, however, we pause to ask how that one 
meaning is to be defined, we receive answers that are neither 
very intelligible nor consistent. If we are told that it is " that 
meaning which it had to the mind of the Prophet or Evangelist 
who first uttered or wrote, to the hearers or readers who first 
received the message," we may justly protest against an answer 
involving alike such assumptions and such ambiguities. What 
right have we to assume that the speaker knew the full meaning 
which his own words might subsequently be found to bear ? A 
very little reflection will show the justice of this query. What 
right, again, have we to assume that the meaning which the 
Prophet or Evangelist designed to convey was identical with 
that which the hearers or readers who first received the message 
conceived to be conveyed in its words ? Assuming even that it 
was so, how are we to arrive at this one meaning common to 
hearer and speaker ? How are we to recognize it, when the words 
before us may bear two or more meanings, each, perhaps, equally 
probable and supported by arguments of equal validity ? It will 
be said that this is precisely the duty of the Interpreter ; that it 
is for him to disengage himself from the trammels of the present, 
and free from the bondage of prejudices and creeds to transport 



Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 393 



himself back into the past, to mingle in spirit with those who 
first heard the words, to feel as they felt, to hear as they heard, 
to recover the one, the true, and the original meaning, and to 
bring it back to the hearer or reader of our own times. All this 
is high-sounding and rhetorical ; it is sure to attract the young 
and the enthusiastic, and by no means ill-calculated to excite 
and delude the inexperienced. But it is rhetoric, and nothing 
more. No one who has had genuine experience in the interpre- 
tation of Scripture would hesitate to pronounce such "magnifyings 
of an office " as completely delusive, if even not deserving the 
graver term, mischievous. Delusive they certainly are, because 
all this self-projection into the past is in reality, and ever has 
been, unostentatiously practised by all better interpreters — by 
all who have sought with humility and earnestness to catch the 
spirit and mind of the writer whom they are striving to expound. 
All this has been practised, almost from the first. Chrysostom 
spoke of it, Augustine commended it, and yet what has been the 
result of experience ? Why, that passage after passage has 
been found to be so pregnant with meaning, so mysteriously 
full, so comprehensively applicable, that the most self-confident 
interpreter in the world could scarcely be brought to declare his 
complete conviction that the one view out of many which he 
may have adopted was certainly the principal one, much less 
that it was the only meaning of the words before him. 

But to give up such attitudes of delusive self-confidence, and 
to return to modesty and reason, we may now proceed to illus- 
trate our first assertion, that Scripture has frequently more than 
one meaning, by references to three particulars in which this is 
very clearly exemplified, — double meanings, or applications of 
prophecy, types, and deeper senses of simple historical state- 
ments. A few remarks shall be made on each. 

(1.) On the first so much has been said of ]ate that it might 
almost seem pure knight-errantry to undertake the advocacy of 
what (we are told) ought now to be regarded as a mere outworn 
prejudice. And yet what is more thoroughly consonant with 
reason, and, we might almost add, experience, than such a belief ? 
We say experience, — for there must be few calm observers of the 
course of events around them who can fail to have been struck 
with the curious re-appearance, under unlikely circumstances, of 



394 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX 



former combinations, and who have not occasionally been almost 
startled by the recurrence of incidents in relations and con- 
nexions that could never have been reasonably expected again. 
It does not seem too much to say that in many instances nations 
and individuals alike seem moving as it were in spirals, con- 
stantly returning, not exactly to the same point, but to the same 
bearings and the same aspects, — not precisely to a former past, 
but to a present that bears to it a very strange and wholly un- 
looked-for resemblance. If this be true in many things that 
fall under our own immediate observation (and very unobservant 
must he be who has not often verified it for himself), if we often 
seem to ourselves to recognize this principle of events becoming 
in many respects doubles of each other, and that not only in 
minor matters, but even in circumstances of some historical im- 
portance, — if this be so, is it strange that in the spiritual history 
of our race there should be such parallelisms ; that words appa- 
rently spoken in reference to a precursory series of events should 
be found to refer with equal pertinence to some mysteriously 
similar combinations that appeared long afterwards ? Are we to 
think that counsels sealed in silence from eternity, that purposes 
of the ages formed before the worlds were made, that dispensa- 
tions of love and mercy laid out even before the objects for 
whom they were designed had come into being, were not over 
and over again reflected, as it were, in the history of our race, 
and that the events of a former day were not often bound in 
mystical likenesses and affinities with the events of the future 
by that principle of redeeming love which permeated and per- 
vaded all ? Unless we are prepared plainly to adopt some of the 
bleakest theories of the scepticism of these later days ; unless 
we are determined to find civilization and development and not 
God in history ; unless we have resolved to see in the Gospel no 
foreordered dispensation, but only a system of morality, unan- 
nounced, unforeshadowed, as strange in its isolated and excep- 
tional character as it has been strange in its effects, — then, and 
then only, can we consistently deny the likelihood and proba- 
bility of God's purposes to the world having imparted to events 
seemingly remote and unconnected, and to issues brought about 
by varied and dissimilar circumstances, real and spiritual re- 
semblances. Then only can we justly deny that the word of 



EgSAY IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION, 395 

prophecy might truly, legitimately, and consistently be con- 
sidered to refer as well to earlier as to later events, wherever 
such resemblances could be reasonably demonstrated to exist. 

To illustrate the foregoing comments by an example, let 
us take an instance which our opponents are never wearied 
with bringing forward, — our Lord's prophecy relative to the 
fate of Jerusalem and the end of the world. Here it is said 
that the system of first and second meanings, which we are 
now defending, is most palpably nothing whatever else than an 
attempt to help out the verification and mitigate the inco- 
herence of a somewhat confused and partially unrealized 
prophecy. Now, in disposing of this idle but painfully 
familiar comment, we will make no allusion to the question of 
the four Apostles, which, it may be observed, necessitated in 
the answer reference to the end of the world as well as to the 
end of the Theocracy (Matt. xxiv. 3) ; we will only take the pro- 
phecy as we find it, with its mingled allusions to a near and to a 
remote future, and simply inquire whether there is any such 
resemblance, spiritual or otherwise, as might make expressions 
used in reference to the one almost interchangeably applicable 
to the other. Who can doubt what the answer must be ? Who 
that takes into consideration the true significance of the fall of 
Jerusalem, who that sees in it, as every sober reader must see. 
not merely the fall of an ancient city, but the destruction of the 
visible seat of Jehovah's worship, the enforced cessation of the 
ancient order of things, the practical abrogation of the Theocracy, 
— all closely synchronous with the Lord's first coming, — who is 
there that will take all these things fairly into consideration and 
not be ready to acknowledge resemblances between the end of 
the fated city and the issues of the present dispensation, suffi- 
ciently mysterious and sufficiently profound to warrant our even 
alternating between them (we use the studiedly exaggerated 
language of opponents) the verses of the Lord's great pro- 
phecy ? Till it can be shown that the course of things is for- 
tuitous, that providential dispensations are a dream, and the 
gradual development of the counsels of God a convenient fiction, 
— till it can be made clear to demonstration, that there are no 
profound harmonies in the Divine government, no mystical 
recurrences of foreordered combinations, no spiritual affinities 



396 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



between the past and the present, no foreseen resemblances in 
e230chal events, and no predestined counterparts, the ground on 
which the reasonable belief in double meanings and double 
applications of prophecy has been rightly judged to rest will 
remain stable and unshaken ; the perspective character that has 
been attributed to Scriptural predictions will still claim to be 
considered no idle or unreal imagination. 

(2.) The subject of types has been much dwelt upon by 
modern writers, and in most cases with singular unfairness. The 
popular mode of arguing on this subject is to select some instances 
from early Christian writers which are obviously fanciful and un- 
tenable, to hold up the skirts of their folly, to display their 
utter nakedness, and then to ask if a system of which these are 
examples either can or ought to be regarded with any degree of 
favour or confidence. If Justin tells us that the king of Assyria 
signified Herod, and Jerome was of opinion that by Chaldseans 
are meant Demons, if the scarlet thread of Bahab has been 
deemed to have a hidden meaning, and the number of Abra- 
ham's followers has been regarded as not wholly without signifi- 
cance, we are asked whether we can deem the whole system 
otherwise than precarious and extravagant, whether we can at 
all safely attribute to the details of the Mosaic ritual a reference 
to the New Testament, or really believe that the passage of the 
Ked Sea can be very certainly considered a type of baptism. 
The ultimate design of this mode of arguing will not escape the 
intelligent reader ; — it is simply an endeavour by slow sap to 
weaken the authority of some of the writers of the New Testa- 
ment, and to leave it to be inferred that our Lord Himself, in 
recognizing and even giving sanction to such applications of 
Scripture (Matt. xii. 40, John iii. 14 ; comp. ch. vi. 58), either 
condescended to adopt forms of illustrations which He must have 
felt to be untrustworthy, or else really in this did not rise wholly 
above the culture of His own times. Now at present, without 
at all desiring to press what we have not yet discussed — the 
inspiration of Scripture — we do very earnestly call upon those 
who are not yet prepared wholly to fling off their allegiance to 
Scripture, to bear in mind the following facts : — (a) That our 
Blessed Lord Himself referred to the Brazen Serpent as typical 
of His being raised aloft, and that He illustrated the mystery of 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 397 

His own abode in the chambers of the earth by an event of the 
past which He Himself was pleased to denominate as a sign, — 
the only sign that was to be vouchsafed to the generation that 
then was seeking for one ; (h) that the Evangelists recognize 
the existence and significance of types in reference to our 
Lord (Matt. ii. 15 ; John xix. 36) ; (c) that the teaching of 
St. Paul is pervaded by references to this form of what has 
been termed " acted prophecies " (Eom. v. 14 seq. ; 1 Cor. v. 
7, x. 2 seq. ; Gal. iv. 24 seq. ; Col. ii. 11) ; (d) that the greater 
part of the Epistle to the Hebrews is one continued eluci- 
dation of the spiritual significance of the principal features 
of the Levitical law : its sacrifices, rites, and priests were 
all the shadows and typical resemblances of good things to 
come (Heb. x. 1) ; (e) that St. Peter plainly and distinctly 
declares that the water of the Flood is typical of baptism 
(1 Pet. iii. 21) ; (/) that in the last and most mysterious reve- 
lation of God to man the very realms of blessedness and glory 
are designated by a name and specified by allusions (Eev. xxi. 
22) wlrich warrant our recognizing in the Holy City on earth, 
the " Jerusalem that now is," a type of that Heavenly City 
which God hath prepared for the faithful (Heb. xi. 16), a simili- 
tude of the Jerusalem that is above, a shadow of the incorruptible 
inheritance of the servants and children of God. 

When we dwell calmly upon these things, when we observe 
further how, not only thus directly and explicitly, but how, also, 
indirectly and by allusion, nearly every writer in the Xew 
Testament bears witness to the existence and significance of 
types, how it tinges their language of consolation (Kev. xxi. 
2 seq.), and gives force to their exhortations (Heb. iv. 14) ; when 
we finally note how the very Eternal Spirit of God, by whom 
they were inspired, is specially declared to have vouchsafed 
thus to involve in the ceremonies of the past the deep truths of 
the future (Heb. ix. 8), — when we calmly consider the cumula- 
tive force of all these examples and all these testimonies, we 
may perhaps be induced to pause before we adopt the sweeping 
statements that have been made in reference to the whole 
system of typology. We may admit that types may have been 
often injudiciously applied, that it may be difficult to fix bounds 
to their use or to specify the measure of their aptitude, and yet 



398 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX. 

we may indeed seriously ask for time to consider whether such 
recognitions of the deeper meanings of Scripture thus vouch- 
safed to us, and thus sanctioned by our Lord and His Apostles^ 
are to be given up at once because they are thought to come in 
collision with modern views of Scripture and modern canons of 
interpretation. Our opponents may well be anxious to get rid 
of the whole system of types ; we can understand their anxiety, 
we can even find reasons for the sort of desperation that scruples 
not to represent what was once sanctioned by our Lord and His 
Apostles as now either mischievous or inapplicable. It is felt 
that if typology is admitted, the assertion that Scripture has but 
one meaning is invalidated. It is seen clearly enough that if it 
can be shown, within any reasonable degree of probability, that 
the details of a past dispensation were regarded by the first 
teachers of Christianity as veritable types and symbols of things 
that had now come, then the recognition of further and deeper 
meanings in Scripture, of secondary senses and ultimate signifi- 
cations, must directly and inevitably follow, and the rule that the 
Bible is to be interpreted like any other book at once be shown 
to be, what it certainly is, inapplicable. Need we wonder then 
that every effort has been made to denounce a system so 
obstructive to modern innovations ; need we be surprised that 
the rejection of what is thus accredited has been as persistent 
as it would now seem proved to be both unreasonable and 
without success ? 

(3.) Our third subject for consideration, the existence of 
deeper meanings in Scripture, even in what might seem simple 
historical statements, follows very naturally after what has been 
just discussed. Here again we can adopt no more convincing mode 
of demonstration than is supplied by an appeal to Scripture. 
Yet we may not unprofitably make one or two preliminary 
comments. In the first place, is not this assertion of a oneness 
of meaning in the written words of an intelligent author open to 
some discussion ? Is it at all clear, even in the case of unin- 
spired writers, that the primary and literal meaning is the only 
meaning which is to be recognized in their words ? Is it so 
wholly inconceivable that more meanings than one may have 
been actually designed at the time of writing, and that, con- 
jointly with a leading and primary meaning, a secondary and 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 399 



subordinate meaning may have been felt, recognized, and in- 
tended ? Kay, can we be perfectly certain that even words may 
not have been specially or instinctively chosen which should leave 
this secondary meaning fairly distinct and fairly recognizable ? It 
would not be difficult to substantiate the justice of these queries 
by actual examples from the writings of any of the greater 
authors whether of our own or some other country. Still less 
difficult would it be to show that in very many passages 
meanings must certainly be admitted which it may be probable 
were not intended by the writer, but which nevertheless by their 
force and pertinence make it frequently doubtful whether what 
has been assumed to be the primary meaning of the words is 
really to be deemed so, and whether what is judged to be an 
application may not really represent the truest aspects of the 
mind and intentions of the author. 

Let us add this second remark, that the instances in which 
words have been found to involve meanings, not recognized at 
the time by reader or by writer, but which after-circumstances 
have shown were really to be regarded as meanings, are by no 
means' few or exceptional. The whole group of illustrations 
supplied by " ominata verba," the whole class of cases which 
belong to that sort of unconscious prescience which is often 
found in minds of higher strain, the various instances where 
glimpses of yet undiscovered relations have given a tinge to 
expressions which will only be fully understood and realized 
when those relations are themselves fully known, — all these 
things, and many more than these, might be adduced as illustra- 
tive of the deeper meanings that are often found to lie in the 
words of mere uninspired men. Such meanings neither they 
nor their own contemporaries may have distinctly recognized,, 
but meanings they are notwithstanding ; not merely applica- 
tions or extensions, but meanings in the simple and regular 
acceptation of the term. How this is to be accounted for, we 
are not called upon to show. We will not speculate how far the 
great and the good of every age and nation may have been 
moved by the inworking Spirit of God to declare truths of wider 
application than they themselves may have felt or realized ; we 
will not seek to estimate the varying degrees of that power of 
partially foreseeing future relations which long and patient study 



400 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



of the past and the present has sometimes been found to impart. 
All such things are probably beyond our grasp, and would most 
likely be found to elude our present powers and present means 
of appreciation. With reasons we will not embarrass ourselves ; 
we will be satisfied with simply calling attention to the fact that 
the existence of such phenomena as that of words having deeper 
and fuller meanings than they were understood to have at first 
is not only not to be denied, but may even be deemed matter 
of something more than occasional experience. 

The two foregoing observations will, perhaps, have in some 
measure prepared us for forming a more just estimate of the 
further and second meanings that have been attributed to the 
words of Scripture. If it be admitted that some of the pheno- 
mena to which we have alluded are occasionally to be recognized 
in purely human writings, is it altogether strange that in a 
revelation from God the same should exist in fuller measures, 
and under still clearer aspects ? If the many-sidedness, mobility, 
and varied powers of combination existing in the human mind, 
appear at times to invest words written or spoken with a signifi- 
cance of a fuller and deeper kind than may at first be recognized, 
are we to be surprised if something similar in kind, but higher hi 
degree, is to be observed in the language of Holy Scripture ? Is 
the Divine mind not to have influences which are conceded to 
the human ? Are the words of Prophets or Evangelists to be 
less pregnant in meaning, or more circumscribed in then appli- 
cations, than those of poets and philosophers ? Without assuming 
one attribute in the Scripture beyond what all our more 
reasonable opponents would be willing to concede, without 
claiming more for it than to be considered a revelation from 
God, a communication from the Divine mind to the minds and 
hearts of men, we may justly claim some hearing for this form of 
the a priori argument ; we may with reason ask all fair disputants 
whether they are prepared positively to deny, in the case of a 
communication directly or even indirectly from God, the proba- 
bility of our finding there some enhancement of the higher 
characteristics and more remarkable phenomena that have been 
recognized in communications of man to men ? 

When we leave these a priori considerations, and turn to definite 
examples and illustrations, our anticipations cannot be said to 
have disappointed us. We have really an affluence of examples 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 401 



of second and deeper meanings being deliberately assigned to 
passages of Scripture that might have been otherwise deemed to 
have only the one simple or historical meaning that seems first 
to present itself. Let us select two or three instances. Is it 
possible to deny that our Lord Himself discloses, in what might 
have been deemed a mere title of Jehovah under His aspects of rela- 
tion to favoured worshippers, a meaning so full and so deep that 
it formed the basis of an argument (Matt. xxii. 31 seq. ; Mark 
xii. 24 seq. ; Luke xx. 37 seq.) ? The familiar titular designation 
is shown to be the vehicle of a spiritual truth of the widest 
application ; the apparently mere recapitulation of the names of 
a son, a father, and a grandfather, in connexion with the God 
whose servants they were, and whom they worshipped, is not 
only urged as proving a fundamental doctrine, but is tacitly 
acknowledged to have done so by gainsayers and opponents 
(Luke xx. 39). And further, let it be observed, that it is clearly 
implied that this was no deeply-hidden meaning, no profound 
interpretation, which it might require a special revelation to dis- 
close, but that it was a meaning which really ought to have been 
recognized by a deeper reader, — at any rate that not to have 
done so argued as plain an ignorance of the Written Word as it 
did of the power and operations "of God (Matt. xxii. 29). Let 
this really " prerogative " example be fairly considered and pro- 
perly estimated, and then let it be asked if the existence of 
deeper meanings in Scripture can consistently be denied by any 
who profess a belief in our Lord Jesus Christ. It seems to us 
that this is a plain case of a dilemma : either with Strauss and 
Hase we must regard the argument as an example of Rabbinical 
sophistry, — and so, as Meyer reminds us, be prepared to sacrifice 
the character and dignity of our Lord, — or we must admit that, in 
some cases at least, there is more in Scripture than the mere 
literal sense of the words. 

Such an example opens the way for the introduction of others, 
which, without this prerogative instance, could not have been 
strongly urged, except on assumptions which, in our present 
position in the argument, it would not be logically consistent to 
make. By being associated, however, with the present example, 
they certainly seem to be of some force and validity in confirm- 
ing our present assertion, and, to say the very least, can be more 
easily explained on that hypothesis than on any other that has 

2d 



402 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



yet been assigned. Let us specify Matt. ii. 15. Now the question 
presents itself in the following form : — Is not this an example 
furnished by the Apostle of what we have already seen must be 
recognized in an example vouchsafed by his Lord ? Is not this a 
case of deeper meaning ? Do not the words of Hosea, the second 
meaning of which was doubtless not more apparent even to the 
prophet himself than it was to his earlier readers, seem only to 
have a simple historical reference to the earthly Israel ? and yet 
do they not really involve a further and typical reference to 
Him who was truly and essentially what Israel was graciously 
denominated (Exod. iv. 22 ; comp. Jerem. xxxi. 9), and of whom 
Israel was a type and a shadow ? So, at any rate, St. Matthew 
plainly asserts. Which, then, of these hypotheses do we think 
most probable, — that St. Matthew erroneously ascribed a mean- 
ing to words which they do not and were not intended to bear, 
that the two chapters are an interpolation (for such an hypo- 
thesis has been advanced), or that they supply an instance of a 
second and typical meaning in words of a simply historical 
aspect, and that a truth is here disclosed by an Apostle similar 
to what we have already seen has been clearly disclosed bv our 
Lord? 

Let us take yet another, and that, as it might be thought, a 
very hopeless instance. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephe- 
sians (ch. iv. 8), not only makes a citation from a Psalm, which 
at the part in question appears to have a simple historical refer- 
ence to some event of the time (perhaps the taking of Rabbah), 
but even alters the words of the original, so as to make its 
application to our Lord more pertinent and telling. What are 
we to say of such a case? Does it not really look like an 
instance of almost unwarrantable accommodation ? Does it not 
seem as if we had now fairly fallen upon the point of our own 
sword, and that, in citing an example of a second meaning, we 
had unwittingly selected one in which the very alteration shows 
that the words did not originally have the meaning now attri- 
buted to them ? Before we thus yield, let us at any rate state 
the case, and leave the fair reader to form his own opinion. 
Without at present assuming the existence of any influence 
which would have directly prevented the Apostle from so 
seriously misunderstanding and so gravely misapplying a pas- 
sage of the Old Testament, and only assuming it as proved that 



Essay IX.] SCKIPTUKE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 403 



there is one authentic instance of words of Scripture bearing a 
further meaning than meets the eye, we now ask which is to be 
judged as most likely : that the Apostle to substantiate a state- 
ment, which could have been easily substantiated by other pas- 
sages, deliberately altered a portion of Scripture which had no 
reference to the matter before him, or that he rightly assigned 
to a seemingly historical passage from a Psalm, which (be it 
observed), in its original scope, has every appearance of being 
prophetic and Messianic, a deeper meaning than the words seem 
to bear (such a meaning being in one case, at least, admitted 
to exist), and that he altered the form of the words to make more 
palpable and evident the meaning which he knew they involved ? 
We have no anxiety as to the decision in the case of any calm- 
judging and unbiassed reader One further remark we 

may make in conclusion, and it is a remark of some little im- 
portance, viz., that if the present instance be deemed an example 
of Scripture having a second and deeper, as well as a first and 
more simple meaning, it must also be regarded as an example of 
an authoritative change in the exact words of a quotation, — the 
change being designed to bring up the underlying meaning 
which was known to exist, and to place it with more distinctness 
before the mind of the general reader. 

III. Having thus, as it would seem, substantiated our asser- 
tion that deeper meanings He in Scripture than appear on 
the surface, and that this may be properly considered as in part 
accounting for the existence of some of those chfficulties and 
diversities which are met with in Scripture-interpretation, we 
now pass to the third assertion relative to the subject, viz., 
that Scripture is divinely inspired. 

Here we enter upon a wide subject, which may with reason 
claim for itself a separate and independent essay, and which 
certainly ought fully to be disposed of before any rules bearing 
upon interpretation can properly be laid down. As a longer 
discussion of this subject will be found in another portion of our 
volume, we will here only make a very few general remarks 
upon inspiration as immediately bearing upon interpretation, 
and more especially upon the estimate formed of its nature and 
extent by the advocates of the system of Scriptural exegesis now 
under our consideration. 

In the outset, let it be said that we heartily concur with the 

2 d 2 



404 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



majority of our opponents in rejecting all theories of inspiration, 
and in sweeping aside all those distinctions and definitions 
which, only in too many cases, have been merely called forth by 
emergencies, and drawn up for no other purpose than to meet 
real and supposed difficulties. The remark probably is just, 
that most of the current explanations err more especially in 
attempting to define what, though real, is incapable of being 
defined in an exact manner. Hence all such terms as " me- 
chanical" and "dynamical" inspiration, and all the theories 
that have grown round these epithets, — all such distinctions as 
inspirations of superintendence, inspirations of suggestion, and 
so forth, — all attempts again to draw lines of demarcation between 
the inspiration of the books of Scripture themselves and the 
inspiration of the authors of which those books were results, 
may be most profitably dismissed from our thoughts, and the 
whole subject calmly reconsidered from what may be termed a 
Scriptural point of view. The holy Volume itself shall explain 
to us the nature of that influence by which it is pervaded 
and quickened. 

8. Thus far we are perfectly in accord with our opponents. We 
are agreed on both sides that there is such a thing as inspira- 
tion in reference to the Scriptures, and we are further agreed 
that the Scriptures themselves are the best sources of informa- 
tion on the subject. Here, however, all agreement completely 
ceases. When we invite our opponents to go with us to the 
Scriptures to discuss their statements on the subject before us, 
and to compare the inferences and deductions that either side 
may make from them, we at once find that by an appeal to 
Scripture we and our opponents mean something utterly and en- 
tirely different. We mean a consideration of what Scripture says 
about itself : we find that they mean a stock-taking of its errors 
and inaccuracies, of its antagonisms with science and its oppo- 
sitions to history, — all which they tell us must first be estimated, 
and with all which, they urge, that inspiration, be it whatever it 
may, must be reconcileable and harmonized. In a word, both sides 
have started from the first on widely different assumptions. We 
assume that what Scripture says is trustworthy, and so conceive 
that it may be fittingly appealed to as a witness concerning its 
own characteristics ; they assume that it abounds in errors and 
incongruities, and suggest that the number and nature of these 



Essay IX.] SCKirTUKE, AND ITS INTERPKETATION. 405 



ought to be generally ascertained before any farther step can be 
taken, or any opinion safely arrived at on the whole subject. 
Such seems a fair estimate of the position and attitude of the two 
contending parties. 

If this statement of our relative positions be just, it seems per- 
fectly clear that several different lines of argument may be 
adopted. We may examine the grounds on which their assump- 
tion rests, or endeavour to establish the validity of our own. 
We may deny that any errors or inaccuracies exist, and throw 
upon them the onus prohandi, or we may take the most popular 
and telling instances in their enumeration and endeavour to dis- 
cover by fair investigation how far they deserve their position, 
and how far prejudice and exaggeration may not have been at 
work on their side, as conservatism and accommodation on ours. 
All these are courses which may be adopted with more or less 
advantage, but any one of which would occupy far more space 
than we can afford for this portion of our subject. We must 
satisfy ourselves, on the present occasion, with making, on the 
one hand, a few affirmative comments upon the nature, degree, 
and limits of the inspiration which we assign to the Scripture ; 
and, on the other hand, a few negative comments upon counter- 
statements advanced by opponents, which seem more than 
usually untrustworthy. 

To begin with the negative side, let us observe, in the first 
place, that nothing can really be less tenable than the assertion 
that there is no foundation in the Gospels or Epistles for any of 
the higher or supernatural views of inspiration. It is a perfectly 
intelligible line of argument to assert that for the testimony of 
any book upon its own nature and characteristics to be worth 
anything, it must first be shown that the book can fully be relied 
on : it is quite consistent with fair reasoning to refuse to accept 
as final or conclusive the evidence of what it may be contended 
has been shown to be a damaged witness. Such modes of argu- 
ment are quite fair and intelligible, and as such we have no fault 
to find with them ; but to make at the outset an assertion, such 
as we are now considering, — to prejudice the minds of the inex- 
perienced by an affirmation, which, if believed, cannot fail to 
produce the strongest possible effect, and which all the time is 
the very reverse of what is the fact, is indeed very like that 
" random scattering of uneasiness " which has been attributed to 



406 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



our opponents,* and which such cases as the present go very far 
to substantiate. It is scarcely possible that those who make 
such assertions can be ignorant of the terms in which our Lord 
is represented by the Gospels to have spoken about the Scrip- 
tures of the Old Testament. It cannot surely be forgotten that 
He said, that they " could not be broken " (John x. 35), and 
that when He so spake He was using Scripture in a manner that 
almost vouched for its verbal and literal infallibility. It cannot 
have been overlooked that when He was citing the words of 
David He defined the Divine influence under which those words 
were uttered (Mark xii. 36). Does not an Evangelist record His 
promise to His Apostles that the Holy Ghost "should teach 
them all things, and bring all things which He said to them to 
their remembrance " (John xiv. 26) ? and does not that same 
Evangelist mention the yet more inclusive promise that the 
same Eternal Spirit should lead the Disciples into "the whole 
truth " (John xvi. 13) ? and are such words to be explained away 
or to be limited? Does not the same writer further tell us 
that the Holy Ghost was almost visibly given to the Apostles by 
the Lord Himself (John xx. 22) ? and does not another Evange- 
list tell of the completed fulness of that gift, and of men so 
visibly filled with the Holy Spirit that the lips of bystanders 
and strangers bore their ready and amazed testimony ? Have 
we no foundation for asserting a higher inspiration when eleven 
men are told by a parting Lord that they are to be his witnesses, 
and that they are to receive supernatural assistance for their 
mission ? Is testimony to be confined to words spoken, and to 
be denied to words written ? Did the power that glowed in the 
heart of the speaker die out when he took up the pen of the 
writer ? Was not, again, the " demonstration of the Spirit " laid 
claim to by St. Paul (1 Cor. ii. 4) ; was it not " God's wisdom " 
that he spake (ver. 7) ? Does he not plainly say that the things 
" which God prepared for those that love Him," His purposes of 
mercy and counsels of love, were revealed to him by God through 
the agency of the Spirit (ver. 10) ? and does he not enhance his 
declaration not only by affirmatively stating from whom his 
teaching was directly imparted, but by stating, on the negative 
side, that to man's wisdom he owed it not ? Yea, and lest it should 



* See Moberly, Preface to ' Sermons on the Beatitudes/ p. ii. 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 



407 



be thought that such high prerogatives belonged only to words 
spoken by the lips, does not the same Apostle guard himself, as 
it were, by claiming for his written words an origin equally Divine ? 
and does he not make the recognition of this a very test of 
illumination and spirituality (1 Cor. xiv. 37) ? We pause, not 
from lack of further statements, but from the feeling that quite 
enough has been said to lead any fair reader to pronounce the 
assertion of there being "no foundation" in the Gospels or 
Epistles for any of the higher or supernatural views of inspira- 
tion contrary to evidence, and perhaps even to admit that such 
assertions, where ignorance cannot be pleaded in extenuation, 
are not to be deemed consistent with fair and creditable argu- 
ment. To deny the worth or validity of such testimony is per- 
fectly compatible with fair controversy ; to deny its existence in 
the teeth of such evidence, — and such evidence is known and 
patent, — can only be designed to give a bias to a reader, and to 
raise up antecedent prejudices in reference to subjects and 
opinions afterwards to be introduced. How far such a mode of 
dealing with grave questions is just or defensible, we will leave 
others to decide. 

Let us make a second remark of a somewhat similar character, 
and earnestly protest against hazy and indefinite modes of 
speaking about the testimony of the Church in reference to 
the doctrine of inspiration. Whether the Church is right or 
wrong in its estimate of the nature and limits of this gift, is cer- 
tainly a question which those who feel the necessity of inquiry 
are perfectly at liberty to entertain. We may pity a state of 
mind that is not moved by such authority, and we may suspect 
it to be ill-balanced ; but we do not complain of such a mode of 
proceeding. If a man wishes to find out whether the Early 
Church, for instance, is right or wrong in its estimate of a prin- 
ciple or a doctrine, let him (in a serious and anxious spirit) com- 
mence his investigation, but let him not seek by vague and 
indefinite language to make it first doubtful whether the Early 
Church really did form any estimate at all, — when that estimate 
is plainly set down in black and white in fifty different treatises. 
Let us, at any rate, have a clear understanding on the question 
at issue, and agree as honest men to throw no doubts upon simple 
matters of simplest fact. Now, when we are told that the term 
inspiration is but of yesterday, and more especially that the 



408 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



question of inspiration was not determined by Fathers of the 
Church, we do seem justified in protesting against such really 
unfair attempts to gain over those who have neither the time, 
the knowledge, nor perhaps the will, to test the truth of the asser- 
tion. Let there be no mistake on this subject. The Fathers of 
the Church may be right or they may be wrong ; but, at any 
rate, on this topic they have spoken most frequently and most 
plainly, and if any question in the world may be considered de- 
termined by them this certainly is one. The Apostolical Fathers 
term the Scriptures "the true sayings" of the Holy Ghost 
(Clem. Eom. ad Cor. i. 45). In quoting passages from the Old 
Testament they often use the significant formula "the Holy 
Ghost saith." Those that followed them used their language. 
Justin Martyr describes the nature of inspiration, and even hints 
at its limits (Cohort. § 8); Irenseus speaks of the Scriptures as 
" spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit " (Hcer. ii. 28. 2) ; 
and even attributes to the foresight of the Eternal Spirit the 
choice of this rather than that mode of expression in the opening 
words of St. Matthew's Gospel (Hcer. hi. 16. 2). In quoting a 
prophet, Clement of Alexandria pauses to correct himself, and 
say it was not so much the prophet as the Holy Spirit in him 
(Cohort. § 8, p. 66), and on the question of Scripture infallibility 
and perfection he is no less precise and definite (Cohort. § 9, p. 
68 ; Strom, ii. p. 432, vii. p. 897, ed. Potter). Tertullian and 
Cyprian carry onward the common sentiment ; those who follow 
them reiterate the same so frequently and so definitively that 
we become embarrassed by the very affluence of our examples. 
Eusebius of Caasarea deals even with technicalities, and brands 
those who dared to say that the writers of Scripture put one 
name in the place of another (Comment, in Psalm, xxxiii., ed. 
Montf.). Augustine states most explicitly his views on the whole 
subject, and asserts the infallibility of Scripture in language 
which the strongest asserter of the so-called bibliolatry of the day 
could not desire to see made more definite or unqualified (see for 
example Upist. lxxxii. 3, torn. ii. p. 285, ed. Bened. 2). . . Again 
we pause. We could continue such quotations almost indefi- 
nitely. We could put our fingers positively on hundreds of such 
passages in the writings of the Fathers of the first five or six 
centuries ; we could quote the language of early Councils ; we 
could point to the silent testimony of early controversies, each 



Essay IX.] SCKIPTUEB, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 409 



side claiming Scripture to be that from which there could be no 
appeal ; we could eyen call in heretics, and prove from their 
own defences of their own tenets, from their own admissions and 
their own assumptions, that the inspiration of Scripture was of 
all subjects one that was conceived thoroughly settled and 
agreed upon. Enough, however, has perhaps been said, enough 
quoted, to place the matter beyond doubt, and to make this per- 
fectly certain, — that what are called high views of inspiration 
were entertained almost unanimously by the earlier writers of 
the Church. So obvious, indeed, is the fact that writers like 
Gfrorer not only concede the fact of the agreement of the early 
writers, and admit the strong opinions they held on the subject, 
but use it as a very ground of reproach against them, and call 
upon us to wonder how men who entertained such high views on 
the inspiration of Scripture could possibly be such arbitrary and 
unfaithful interpreters. 

A third remark may be made on the negative side by way of 
complaint that we find so little weight assigned to the subjective 
argument, as it may be termed, for the inspiration of Scripture. 
In the sceptical writings of the day the argument is rarely stated 
except to be dealt with as a form of a natural but not very harm- 
less illusion. Yet it is an argument of the greatest force and 
importance, and an argument which, if rightly handled, it is 
much easier to set aside than to answer. Is it nothing that the 
Bible has spoken to millions upon millions of hearts, as it were 
with the very voice of God Himself? Have not its words 
burned within till men have seen palpably the Divine in that 
which spake to them ? Is it not a fact that convictions on the 
nature of the Scriptures deepen with deepening study of them ? 
Ask the simple man to whom' the Bible has long become the 
daily friend and counsellor, who reads and applies what he reads 
as far as his natural powers enable him; ask him whether 
longer and more continued study has altered to any extent his 
estimate of the Book as a Divine revelation. What is the inva- 
riable answer? The Book "has found him;" it has consoled 
him in sorrows for which there seemed no consolation on this 
side the grave ; it has wiped away tears that it seemed could 
only be wiped away in that far land where sadness shall be no 
more ; it has pleaded gently during long seasons of spiritual 
coldness ; it has infused strength in hours of weakness ; it has 



410 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



calmed in moments of excitement ; it has given to better emo- 
tions a permanence, and to stirred-up feelings a reality ; it has 
made itself felt to be what it is ; out of the abundance of his 
heart the mouth speaks, and he tells us with all the accumulated 
convictions of an honest mind, that if he once deemed the Bible 
to be fully inspired on the testimony of others, now he knows it 
on evidence that has been brought home to his own soul. He 
has now long had the witness in himself, and that witness he 
feels and knows is unchangeably and enduringly true. 

Ask, again, the professed student of Scripture, the scholar, the 
divine, the interpreter, one who, to what we may term the testi- 
mony of the soul, in the case of the less cultivated reader, can 
add the testimony of the mind and the spirit, — ask such a one 
whether increased familiarity with Scripture has quickened or 
obscured his perception of the Divine within it, whether it has 
led him to higher or to lower views of inspiration. Have not, 
we may perhaps anxiously ask, the difficulties of Scripture 
wearied him, its seeming discordances perplexed, its obscurities 
depressed him ? Have not the tenor of its arguments, and the 
seeming want of coherence and connexion in adjacent sentences, 
sometimes awakened uneasy and disquieting thoughts ? What 
is almost invariably the answer ? — " No ; far otherwise/' Deep- 
ened study has brought its blessing and its balm. It has shown 
how what might seem the greatest difficulties often turn merely 
upon our ignorance of one or two unrecorded facts or relations ; 
it has conducted to standing-points where in a moment all that 
has hitherto seemed confused and distorted has arranged itself 
in truest symmetry and in the fairest perspective. In many an 
obscure passage our student will tell us how the light has oft- 
times suddenly broken, how he has been cheered by being per- 
mitted to recognize and identify the commingling of human 
weakness and Divine power, the mighty revelation almost too 
great for mortal utterance, the " earthen vessel " almost parting 
asunder from the greatness and abundance of the heavenly 
treasure committed to it. He will tell us, again, how in many 
a portion where the logical connexion has seemed suspended or 
doubtful, — in one of those discourses, for instance, of his Lord 
as recorded by St. John, — the true connexion has at length 
slowly and mysteriously disclosed itself, how he has perceived 
and realized all. For a while he has felt himself thinking as 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 411 



his Saviour vouchsafed to think, in part beholding truth as 
those Divine eyes beheld it ; for a brief space his mind has 
seemed to be consciously one with the mind of Christ. All this 
he has perceived and felt. And he will tell us, perchance, what 
has often been the sequel ; how he has risen from his desk and 
fallen on his knees, and with uplifted voice blessed and adored 
Almighty God for His gift of the Book of Life. 

The cold-hearted may smile at such things, the so-called 
philosophical may affect to account for them ; they may be put 
aside as illusions, or they may be explained away as projections 
of self on the passive page, unconscious infusion of one's own 
feelings and emotions in the calm words that meet the outward 
eye. All this ' has been urged against such testimony, and will 
ever be urged even to the very end. But when the end does 
come the truth will appear. That witnessing of soul and spirit 
will, it may be, rise up in silent judgment against many a one 
who now slights it; that testimony so often rejected as self- 
engendered and fanciful, will be seen to have been real and 
heaven-born, a reflex image of an eternal truth, a part and a 
portion of the surest of the sure things of God. 

9. But let us now pass from the negative to the positive, and 
make a few affirmative observations on the subject before us. 
Let us begin, not with a theory, but with a definition and a 
statement of the belief that is in us. If asked to define what we 
mean by the inspiration of Scripture, let us be bold, and make 
answer, — that fully convinced as we are that the Scripture is the 
revelation through human media of the infinite mind of God to 
the finite mind of man, and recognizing as we do both a human 
and a Divine element in the written Word, we verily believe 
that the Holy Ghost was so breathed into the mind of the writer, 
so illumined his spirit and pervaded his thoughts, that, while 
nothing that individualized him as man was taken away, every 
thing that was necessary to enable him to declare Divine Truth 
in all its fulness was bestowed and superadded. And, as con- 
sonant with this, we further believe that this influence of the 
Spirit, whether by illumination, suggestion, superintendence, or 
all combined, extended itself— first, to the enunciation of senti- 
ments and doctrines, that so the will and counsels of God should 
not be a matter of doubt, but of certain knowledge ; secondly, to 
statements, recitals, facts, that so the truth into which the writer 



412 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX, 



was led should be known and recognized ; thirdly, to the choice 
of expressions, modes of speech, and perhaps occasionally even of 
words (the individuality of the writer being conserved), that so 
the subject-matter of the revelation might be conveyed in the 
fittest and most appropriate language, and in the garb best 
calculated to set off its dignity and commend its truth. 

Let such be our definition. If asked how we justify it, how 
we prove our assertions, we answer in two ways : first, by a priori 
arguments of great force and validity ; secondly, by a posteriori 
arguments of equal or even greater strength, — arguments which 
our preceding remarks on the negative side have been designed 
indirectly to set forward and substantiate. Into these argu- 
ments we do not intend to enter, but we may profitably pause 
to specify them. On the a priori side, and especially in reference 
to the Old Testament, we may specify evidences of inspira- 
tion derived from the clear accordance of various events with 
prophecies special or general that can be proved to have 
been uttered before the events in question. Among instances 
of this nature the history and present state of the Jews 
have been always rightly and confidently appealed to.* Again, 
on the same side, but more in reference to the New Testa- 
ment, it has been fairly urged that, if we admit the general 
truth and Divine character of the Christian dispensation, we 
can hardly believe that those who were chosen to declare its 
principles and to make known its doctrines were not especially 
guarded from error in the execution of their weighty com- 
mission, and were not divinely guided both in the words they 
uttered and the statements they committed to writing. On the 
a posteriori side we may specify the three great arguments to 
which we have already alluded : the direct declarations of Scrip- 
ture, the trustworthy character of Scripture having been first 
demonstrated f ; the unanimous consent of the early writers, and 
unchanging testimony of the Catholic Church ; and, lastly, the 
inward and subjective testimony to the Divine nature of the 
Scripture yielded by the soul and spirit of the individual. Other 
arguments there are, especially on the a priori side, of varying 



* See Moberly, Preface to 1 Sermons 
on the Beatitudes,' p. xxxii. 

f Thus to appeal to Scripture to 
define its own character in reference 
to inspiration seems perfectly fair, when 



the trustworthy character of the volume 
has been properly demonstrated ; com- 
pare the remarks of Chalmers, ' Christ- 
ian Evidences,' iv. 2. 26, vol. iv., p. 390. 
(Glasgow ed.) 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 413 



degrees of strength and solidity, appealing in different ways to 
different minds ; but the chief perhaps have been specified, and 
on these we may safely and securely base our preceding asser- 
tions, and our unhesitating and unqualified belief hi the full 
inspiration of the Word of God. 

But it may be asked, how do we conceive that this inspiration 
took place ? What is our theory of the process ? what do we 
conceive to be the modus agendi of the Holy Spirit in the heart of 
man ? This we plainly refuse to answer. We know not, and 
do not presume to inquire into the manner ; we recognize and 
believe in the fact. Individual writers may have speculated ; 
imagery, suitable or unsuitable, may have been introduced as 
illustrative by a few thinkers in early ages ; but the Catholic 
Church has never put forward a theory. On this subject she 
has always maintained a solemn reserve : she declares to us that 
in the Scripture the Holy Ghost speaks to us by the mouths 
of men; she permits us to recognize a Divine and a human 
element; but, in reference to the nature, extent, and special 
circumstances of the union, she warns us not to seek to be wise 
above what has been written, not to endanger our faith with 
speculations and conjectures about that which has not been 
revealed. Theories of inspiration are what scepticism is ever 
craving for: it is the voice of hapless unbelief that is ever 
loudest in its call for explanation of the manner of the assumed 
union of the Divine with the human, or of the proportions 
in which each element is to be admitted and recognized. Such 
explanations have not been vouchsafed, and it is as vain and 
unbecoming to demand them as it is to require a theory of 
the union of the Divinity and Humanity in the person of Christ, 
or an estimate of the proportions in which the two perfect 
natures are to be conceived to co-exist. 

Not much more profitable is the inquiry into the exact limits 
of inspiration, whether it is to be considered in all cases as 
extending to words, or whether it is only to be confined to senti- 
ments and doctrines. At first sight we might be inclined to 
adopt the latter statement, and such, to some extent, would 
certainly seem to have been the view of a writer of no less 
antiquity and learning than Justin Martyr: still when we 
remember, on the one hand, that there are instances in Scrip- 
ture in which weighty arguments have in some degree been seen 



414 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



to depend on the very words and expressions that are made use 
of (John x. 34; Gal. iii. 16), and on the other, that many- 
important truths must have lost much of their force and signi- 
ficance if they had not been expressed exactly with that verbal 
precision which the subject-matter might have demanded, we 
shall be wise either to forbear coming to any decision, or else to 
adopt that guarded view which we have already indirectly 
advocated, viz., that in all passages of importance, wheresoever 
the natural powers of the writer would not have supplied the 
befitting word or expression, there it was supplied by the real 
though probably unperceived influence of the Spirit of God. 

A question of far greater moment, and far more practical 
importance, is that which relates to the exact degree of the 
inspiration, the fallibility or infallibility of the Sacred Kecords. 
Was the inspiration such as wholly to preclude errors and 
inaccuracies, or was it such as can be compatible with either one 
or the other ? This is clearly the real anxious question of our 
own times, and one to which we must briefly return an answer, 
as general canons of interpretation must obviously to some 
extent be modified by the opinions we form on a subject which 
so seriously affects the character of the documents before us. 
Let us pause for a moment to consider the answer that is now 
commonly returned by those among us who claim to be con- 
sidered of advanced thought and intelligence. They tell us, in 
language of unrestrained confidence, that no man of candour 
can fail to acknowledge the existence not only of mistakes as to 
matters of minor importance, but of such positive "patches of 
human passion and error," such "weakness of memory, 5 ' or 
such "mingling of it with imagination," such "feebleness of 
inference, such confusion of illustration with argument," and 
such variations in judgment and opinion, that in the study of 
Scripture we must continually have recourse to a "rectifying 
or verifying faculty," that we may properly be enabled to 
separate the Divine from the human, — what is true, real, and 
unprejudiced, from what is perverted, mistaken, and false. In 
a word, the Sacred writers now stand charged with errors of two 
kinds, — errors of mind and judgment, and errors in matters of 
fact, but on evidence (as the following remarks will tend to 
show) which cannot be regarded either as sufficient or con- 
clusive. 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 415 



To substantiate the first class of errors we may commonly 
observe two modes of proceeding : on the one hand, the more 
reckless method of citing difficult texts, assuming that they 
contain a meaning arbitrarily fixed on by the critic, and pro- 
bably not intended by the writer, and then censuring him for 
not having intelligibly expressed it; on the other hand, the 
more guarded but equally mischievous suggestion that the logic 
of the Scriptures is rhetorical in character, and that such 
passages as Kom. i. 16 seq., Kom. iii. 19, al., are examples of 
some forms of error in reasoning, and such oppositions as " light 
and darkness," "good and evil," "the Spirit and the flesh," "the 
sheep and the goats," oppositions of ideas only, which are not 
realized in fact and experience. With regard to these methods, 
we will say briefly that the first is unfair and discreditable ; 
the second, simple assertion that can either be disproved in 
detail, or that fairly admits of counter-assertion of greater 
probable truth. 

The second class of alleged errors is, at first sight, of more 
importance and plausibility. It professes to include oppositions 
to science, oppositions to received history, and cases of direct 
mutual contradiction. Of these three forms we may again 
briefly say that instances of the first kind, far from increasing, 
are steadily decreasing under a just comparison of the true 
meaning of the words of Scripture with the accredited conclu- 
sions of science. Kecent discussions of the subjects of contro- 
versy by men of acknowledged scientific attainments have 
tended to show that the oppositions of Scripture and science 
are really far more doubtful than they are assumed to be, and 
that though they still hold a very prominent place on the pages 
of the charlatan, they one by one disappear from the treatises of 
men of real science who have scholarship sufficient to extract 
the real meaning of the language of Scripture in the passages 
under consideration. . . . Much the same sort of remark, mutatis 
mutandis, may be made on alleged oppositions to received 
History or Chronology ; many of the supposed oppositions held 
in former times to be inexplicable have now entirely passed 
away from the scene, and have alike ceased to stimulate the 
sceptic or to disquiet the believer; others, like the case of 
Oyrenius (Luke ii. 2), are all but gone ; and as to what remain 
there is a growing feeling among unbiassed scholars and 



416 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



historians that if we could but obtain the knowledge of a few 
more facts relative to the various points at issue, the oppositions 
of Scripture and History would wholly cease to exist. ... In 
regard of mutual contradictions, it might be thought a better case 
has been made out. Writers from whom we might have looked 
for more guarded comment have done much to exaggerate the 
so-called discrepancies of the Scripture narrative, and have some- 
what too emphatically denounced modes of explanation that, both 
from their simplicity and, not unfrequently, their antiquity, have 
very great claims on our consideration. Sceptics have not been 
slow to take advantage of this ill-advised course. When, however, 
all these so-called contradictions are mustered up, they are but 
a motley and an enfeebled host. We survey them, and we 
observe some as old as the days of Celsus, and as decrepit 
as they are old ; others vainly hiding all but mortal wounds 
received in conflicts of the past, and now only craving a coup de 
grace from some combatant of our own times ; some of a later 
date, and a more aspiring air, recruited from Deistical contro- 
versies of a century or two back, but all marked with uncomely 
scars, and armed with nothing better than broken or corroded 
weapons. There they stand; the discrepancy between two 
Evangelists about the original dwelling-place of Mary and 
Joseph, explained and well explained fourteen hundred years 
ago ; the two genealogies, fairly discussed in ancient times, and 
in our own explained in a manner that approaches to positive 
demonstration ; the blasphemy of the two thieves, disposed of 
very reasonably by Clrrysostom, and since his time on the same 
or a similar principle by every unprejudiced commentator ; the 
narrative of the woman who anointed our Lord's feet, first 
prepared for the occasion by the assumption that the narratives 
in all the four Gospels relate to the same woman, — an assumption 
regarded even by Meyer, and apparently De Wette, as plainly 
contrary to the fact. And so on. WTien we survey such a 
company, and are told that, at any rate, we should respect then- 
numbers, their aggregate authority, their cumulative weight, an 
uneasy feeling arises in the mind that those who parade them 
must really be aware that there is something amiss with each case, 
that, however numerically strong they may be, it is disagreeably 
true that as individual instances they are disabled or weak. If 
so, is there not a great responsibility resting on those who bring 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 417 



forward catalogues of such instances, and yet do not apprize 
the simple and the inexperienced that each supposed difficulty 
has most certainly been met over and over again, and with very 
reasonable success; that this array, so to be respected for its 
numbers, is really strong in nothing else, — a mere rabble of half- 
armed or disarmed men ? 

But finally, it may be said, are we prepared to assert that no 
inaccuracy, even in what all might agree in regarding as a 
wholly unimportant matter of fact, — a date, for instance, or a 
name, or a popular statement of an indifferent matter, — either has 
been, or can ever be, found in the whole compass of Scripture ? 
To that question, in its categorical form, we should perhaps be 
wise in refusing positively to return any answer. We have no 
theory of inspiration, we only state what we find to be a matter 
of fact, we only put forward what those facts and the testimony 
of the Church, alike warrant us in defining as the true and 
Catholic doctrine. We have no means of settling definitely 
whether a posse peccare in minor matters may, or may not, be 
compatible with a Divine revelation communicated through 
human media ; but certainly till inaccuracies, fairly and uncon- 
test ably proved to be so, are brought home to the Scripture, we 
seem logically justified in believing that as it is with nine-tenths 
of the alleged contradictions in Scripture, so is it with the 
alleged inaccuracy. Either the so-called inaccuracy is due to 
our ignorance of some simple fact, which, if known, would ex- 
plain all ; or it is really only an illustration of one of those very 
conditions and characteristics of human testimony, however 
honest and truthful, without which it would cease to be human 
testimony at all. If positively forced to state our opinion, we 
will express what we believe to be the true doctrine of inspira- 
tion in this particular by an example and a simile. As in the 
case of the Incarnate Word we fully recognize in the Lord's 
humanity all essentially human limitations and weaknesses, 
the hunger, the thirst, and the weariness on the side of the 
body, and the gradual development on the side of the human 
mind (Luke ii. 40), — in a word, all that belongs to the essential 
and original characteristics of the pure form of the nature He 
vouchsafed to assume, but plainly deny the existence therein of 
the faintest trace of sin, or of moral or mental imperfection, — 
even so in the case of the written Word, viewed on its purely 

2 E 



418 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



human side, and in its reference to matters previously admitted to 
have no bearing on Divine truth, we may admit therein the exist- 
ence of such incompleteness, such limitations, and such imper- 
fections as belong even to the highest forms of purely truthful 
human testimony, but consistently deny the existence of mis- 
taken views, perversion, misrepresentation, and any form what- 
ever of consciously committed error or inaccuracy. 

10. We have thus at length touched upon all the main points 
in which the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture is in any 
degree likely to come in contact with rules and principles of 
interpretation. Less than this could not have been said. Less 
it was not logically consistent to say. It may, indeed, seem 
plausible to urge that we have no right to express any prior 
opinion on such subject ; that we have only to apply to Scrip- 
ture the ordinary rules of interpretation which we observe in the 
case of other books, and that we ought to leave the question of 
inspiration to be settled by the results we arrive at. Is it not, 
however, abundantly clear that if there be even a low presump- 
tion, arising from external or internal evidence, for supposing 
that the Scripture has characteristics which render it very unlike 
any other book, then it is only right and reasonable to examine 
that evidence before we apply rules of interpretation which, 
perhaps, may be found in the sequel to be inadmissible or inap- 
plicable ? Surely, on the very face of the matter it seems some- 
what strange to be told to interpret the Scripture like any other 
book, while in the same breath it is avowed that there are many 
respects in which Scripture is unlike any other book. It is 
really very much the same as being told to ascertain with a two- 
foot rule the precise linear dimensions of a room of which it is 
known or admitted that the sides are not always straight, but 
variously curved and embayed. The application of our two-foot 
rule would doubtless put very clearly before us, if we had ever 
doubted it, not only the fact that bays and curvatures really did 
exist, but also that the instrument in our hands was a singularly 
unfit one for measuring what it was plain required something 
less rigid and impracticable. The duty of the two-foot rule 
would really then be over, unless we chose to reserve it for 
those parts where the walls somewhat more nearly conformed 
to the straight line. If, however, we desired properly to com- 
plete our task, we should have to go home for our measuring- 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 419 



tape. The nature and application, first of the two-foot rule and 
then of the measuring-tape, may now very fitly engage our atten- 
tion, and occupy the remaining portion of the present essay. 

§ 3. 

11. Hitherto we have been engaged in two very important 
departments of the subject before us. In the first part of our 
paper we have done our best to clear away some of the errors 
and misrepresentations connected with the great alleged variety 
of Scripture interpretations. In the second portion we have 
endeavoured to arrive at a just estimate of the nature and cha- 
racteristics of Scripture, which must be recognized by the 
careful and reverent interpreter. We have seen that variety is 
to be expected, and difficulties to be prepared for in the inter- 
pretation of Scripture, and we have further seen that this variety 
and these difficulties are to be ascribed, first, to the real dif- 
ference between Scripture and every other book ; secondly, to 
the existence in it of deeper meanings, as shown in its prophetic, 
typical, or even historical portions ; and thirdly, to the fact of 
its being a volume written under the influence of an inspiration 
which we have endeavoured briefly to explain and substantiate. 
These two portions of our subject being finished, we now proceed 
to the third portion, — a discussion of what appears generally to 
be the true and right method of interpreting a volume charac- 
terized as we have found the Scripture to be ; and a statement 
of a few principles, rules, and observations, which may be of 
some service to younger students, and which experience has cer- 
tainly shown to be sound and trustworthy. 

This forms the main department of our subject, and admits of 
several subdivisions. Perhaps our simplest course will be to 
devote the present section to a discussion of general rules of in- 
terpretation — the jeally important portion of the subject ; and to 
append in concluding sections a few comments, on the one hand, 
upon the application of Scripture, and, on the other, upon the 
grammar and laws of the letter. In so doing we confine our- 
selves principally to the New Testament, but we shall perhaps 
be found not unfrequently to allude to canons and principles 
that will apply to all parts of the Sacred Volume, and may 
benefit the student of the Old as well as of the New Testament 
Ere, however, we enter into these discussions, let one point be 

2 e 2 



420 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



clearly understood, — that there is a requisite, a necessary prepa- 
ration for the study of the Scripture, which we assume through- 
out, a preparation of more value than a knowledge of all the 
rules and canons of the wisest interpreters of the world : that 
requisite and preparation is preliminary prayer. It is not ne- 
cessary to enlarge upon a subject which speaks for itself; it is 
not necessary to commend what the very instincts of the soul 
tell us is a preparation simply and plainly indispensable. We 
allude to it as by its very mention serving to hallow our coming 
remarks, and as useful in reminding us, in the pride and glory 
of our intellectual efforts, that it is more than probable that 
the very simplest reader that takes his translated Bible on his 
knees, and reads with prayer that he may understand, will 
attain a truer and more inward knowledge of the words than will 
ever be vouchsafed to him who, with all the appliances of j)hilo- 
logy and criticism, reads the original but forgets to mark its 
holy character, and to pray that he may not only read, but may 
also learn and understand. Would to God that this rule were of 
more universal adoption, and had been of late more regularly 
observed; for then we may be well assured that none of the 
scornfulness and rash modes of interpretation against which we 
have now to protest would ever have been put forth, and have 
tried, as they now are trying, both the faith and the patience of 
humbler students of the Word. 

One further preliminary and requisite in the case of the 
interpreter of Scripture we must here allude to, both on account 
of its own intrinsic importance, and still more in consequence 
of the startling way in which it has been recently neglected. 
That requisite is candour. Next, in the work of interpretation, 
to a prayerful and humble stands a candid and honest spirit, — 
a brave and faithful spirit that knowing and believing that God 
is a God of Truth hesitates not to state with all clearness and 
simplicity the results to which humble-minded investigation 
seems in each case to lead, — that scorns to palter and explain 
away, to gloss or to idealize, — that shrinks not from frankly 
specifying all the details of the apparent discrepancy, be it with 
other portions of Scripture, with science, or with history, be- 
lieving thus that the true reconciliation will hereafter be more 
readily discovered, — in a word, that has faith clearly to tell the 
dreaim and patience to wait for the interpretation thereof. We 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 421 

cannot but observe that even sounder interpreters both of our 
own and other times have often sadly failed in this particular. 
We own with sorrow that there have ever been over-eager 
Uzzahs among us that have sought to upbear the endangered 
truth with aids that have brought on themselves their own 
chastisement. We admit, alas ! that good and earnest men 
have sometimes been driven by anxieties and antagonisms into 
patently inadmissible solutions ; we know that they have urged 
untenable accommodations, and we are even willing to believe, 
as our opponents tell us, that they have dwelt on evidence that 
was in their favour, and have been very insufficiently sensitive to 
that which was against them. This we know and admit, but at the 
same time we fail not to observe that, as our coming examples 
will show, they who have brought this charge against others 
lie grievously open to it themselves, and that it is indeed time 
that both parties should desist from courses which do such deep 
dishonour to the Word of God, and imply such an utter want 
both of faith and integrity. 

Let the interpreter then resolve, with God's assisting grace, to 
be candid and truthful. Let him fear not to state honestly the 
results of his own honest investigations : let him be simple, 
reverent, and plain-spoken, and, above all, let him pray against 
that sectarian bias which by importing its own foregone conclu- 
sions into the word of Scripture, and by refusing to see or to 
acknowledge what makes against its own prejudices, has proved 
the greatest known hindrance to all fair interpretation, and has 
tended, more than anything else in the world, to check the free 
course of Divine Truth. To illustrate our meaning by examples. 
Let the interpreter in the first place be seduced by no timidity 
or prejudices from ascertaining the true text. Let him not fall 
back upon the too 'often repeated statement that, as readings 
affect no great points of doctrine, the subject may be left in 
abeyance. It is indeed most true, that different readings of 
such a character as 1 Tim. iii. 16, or interpolations such as 
1 J ohn v. 7, are few and exceptional. It is indeed a cause for 
devout thankfulness, if not even for a recognition of a special 
providence, that out of the vast number of various readings so 
few affect vital questions ; still it is indisputably a fact that but 
few pages of the New Testament can be turned over without 
our finding points of the greatest interest affected by very 



422 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



trivial variations of reading. On the presence or absence of an 
article in John v. 1 the whole chronology of our Lord's ministe- 
rial life may be said almost entirely to depend. A very slight 
alteration in Mark vii. 31 opens out a fact of deep historical 
interest, and is of very great significance in reference alike to 
commands subsequently given to the Apostles to preach the 
Gospel, and to former prohibitions (Matt. x. 5). The absence 
of two words in Eph. i. 1 (now rendered somewhat more probable 
by the testimony of the Codex Sinaiticus) gives a fresh aspect 
to an important Epistle, disposes at once of several prima facie 
difficulties, and further must be taken greatly into account in 
the adjustment of some subordinate but interesting questions 
with which the Epistle has been thought to stand in connexion 
(Col. iv. 16). The presence or absence of a few words in Matt, 
xxviii. 9 affects considerably our ability to remove one of the 
many seeming discrepancies in the narratives of the first hours 
of the morn of the Resurrection. We could multiply such 
examples, but perhaps enough has been said. There are 
indeed several grounds for thinking that there is an improved 
feeling on the whole subject ; and there seem some reasons for 
hoping that though no authoritative revision is likely to take 
place, nor, at present perhaps, even to be desired, yet that the 
time is coming when there will be a considerable agreement on 
many of the results of modern criticism, and when it will be as 
startling to hear a sermon deliberately preached on Acts viii. 
37, as it would be now on the Heavenly Witnesses. There are, 
alas i still many signs of uneasiness and obstruction ; but we do 
entreat and conjure those who would only too gladly put the 
whole question in abeyance to pause, seriously to pause, before 
they do such dishonour to the words of inspiration, and leave 
clinging to our Church both the reproaches which are now so 
pitilessly cast upon us all by the gainsayer, and that still deeper 
reproach of our own hearts, — that, believing the Bible to be a 
special, direct, and inspired revelation from God, we have yet 
not used the means now at hand of ascertaining the exact 
language in which that revelation is vouchsafed. Mournful 
indeed will be the retrospect, and gloomy indeed the future, if 
unbecoming anxiety or a timid conservatism is to tempt honest 
hearts to show sadly lacking measures of faith, and to deal 
deceitfully with the Oracles of God. 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 423 



If this be the first form in which candour is to be shown, let 
the second be the fearless statement of the apparent results of 
investigation, whether on this side or on that, in the case of 
collective or individual passages. A few remarks will illustrate 
our meaning, and will incidentally substantiate what we have 
stated above, viz., that those who have recently most inveighed 
against want of candour in others are grievously lacking in it 
themselves.* What, for instance, can be more uncandid than to 
imply that justification by faith may mean " peace of mind or 
sense of Divine approval," when against it we have not only the 
current of two important Epistles, but observe that in the very 
passage from which such a perverted view might have been 
derived (Rom. v. 1) the mention of the Saviour as the medium 
shows in what sense the Apostle meant his words to be under- 
stood, and how consistently he could state eight verses after- 
wards that we were justified in and by the blood of Christ (iv 
tg> aLfian), and were reconciled by His death (ver. 10)? How 
really unpardonable to hint that resurrection may mean " a 
spiritual quickening," and to stamp the exact meaning of 
the hint by the subsequent assertion, that Heaven is not a place 
so much as fulfilment of the love of God, when this is a perver- 
sion of the word against which an Apostle has left a special and 
determinate protest ! How opposed to all principles of honest 
explanation to imply that propitiation is the recovery of a peace 
with God which sin has interrupted, and to follow it up by the 
supplementary assertion that negation of " rite of blood " belongs 
essentially to a spiritual God, when we have the drift of part of 
a long Epistle opposed to such a view, and when we further 
observe that a mention of the material element " blood " in con- 
nexion with our redemption and our Lord's atonement (Eph. i. 
7, ii. 13, 1 Pet. i. 2, 19, al.) is in the New Testament so per- 
petual and pervasive that he who denies it must be prepared to 
deny the evidence of his own senses ! Such melancholy perver- 
sions of Scripture may perhaps be extreme cases, but they may 
suitably serve as examples of the lengths to which prejudice and 
want of candour may at last proceed, and may incidentally 
warn us that the dread term " judicial blindness " expresses no 



* For the culpable statements and insinuations reprehended in the text, see 
' Essays and Reviews,' p. 80 seq. 



424 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



mere fancy of theologians, bnt a frightful and a substantive 
truth. 

With such painful examples before us, surely the duty of 
resolving at all costs to be candid, to estimate fairly the details, 
and state honestly the results of investigations, be the apparent 
tenor of those results whatever it may, seems to press itself upon 
us with redoubled force. Never was there a time when candour 
on all sides seemed more necessary, never a period in the history 
of our Church when a frank recognition of points of difficulty and 
difference seemed likely to be productive of more real good. 
Above all things, let us not yield to the temptation of holding 
back what we believe to be the true aspect of a passage because 
it may be thought to lend a passing countenance to the tenets 
of opponents. Let us be fair to all sides. While then, for ex- 
ample, we justly protest against the use of 1 Cor. hi. 13 to esta- 
blish Purgatory, because, on the one hand, perspicuity, and, on 
the other, details (ev irvpi), as illustrated by parallel passages 
(2 Thess. i. 8 ; Dan. vii. 9, 10 ; Mai. iv. 1), alike seem to point 
to 7] rjfiepa (previously agreed upon by both sides to be " dies 
Domini," Vulg.) being the nominative to diroicoXvirTeraL ; so, in 
the case of 2 Tim. i. 16 (comp. ch. iv. 19) we do not shrink from 
giving the opinion that the terms of the verse seem to imply 
that Onesiphorus was dead at the time that the Epistle was 
written, though we may know the use that will be made of the 
statement. While, again, we deny the fairness of using Gal. v. 6 
to support the theory of a fides formata, we are not deterred by 
the known use of the text in support of Tradition from stating the 
opinion that, in the case of 2 Thess. ii. 15, the use of eSiBdxOrjre 
and the general tenor of the context justify the reference of 
TrapaSocreis to matters, not only of discipline, but also of doctrine. 
... To pass to other opponents : we fear not, on the one side, to 
give up several of the examples said to fall under Granville Sharp's 
rule, as, for example, Eph. v. 5, 2 Thess. i. 12, deeming the ap- 
plication of the rule in words like ©eo? and Ki/pto? to be, gram- 
matically considered, precarious ; on the other side, we feel the 
contextual allusions to be so distinct in Tit. ii. 13, that we have 
no hesitation in stating our firm belief that the title " Great 
God" is there applied to the Lord Jesus. Again, we are not 
afraid to own that virep, though apparently so used in Philem. 13, 
is not safely to be pressed in every doctrinal passage similar to 



Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEB, AND ITS INTEKPRETATION. 425 



GaL iii. 13, or 1 Pet. iii. 18, as serving to establish the doctrine 
of onr Lord's vicarious sufferings : we claim however, in return, 
the same candour at the hands of our opponents in the interpre- 
tation of such passages as 1 Tim. h. 6 (avrikvTpov), 1 Pet. ii. 24, 
which, if words mean anything, do assuredly imply that doctrine 
in the most plain and unqualified way. We deny not all the 
fair inferences that flow from such passages as — " every soul 
shall bear its own iniquity," — but we do justly complain, with 
such words before us as re/cva opyrj? (Eph. ii. 2 ; actually ren- 
dered by one living writer " children of impulse "*), and with a 
variety of similar allusions positively pervading the New Testa- 
ment, that we should be told that the Christian scheme of 
redemption " has been staked " on two so-called figurative 
expressions of St. Paul, as found in Eom. v. 12 and 1 Cor. xv. 22. 
We draw back with positive repugnance from such a gloss as 
that of Beza (" quosvis homines ") on the holy inclusiveness of 
the irdvras in 1 Tim. ii. 5, yet again we do not shrink from a 
single inference that legitimately comes from the e^eXe^aro in such 
passages as Eph. i. 4, nor do we deny that few topics have been 
more overlooked, and few which throw a greater light on the final 
adjustment of all things, than the circumstances, characteristics, 
and prerogatives of the elect. Few perversions, again, have been 
more decided than the change of nominative in Heb. x. 38, yet 
this ought all the more to urge us, on the other side, to set an 
example of candour in the interpretation of the eiriTekeaeL in 
Phil. i. 6, and not to tamper with the tense of fiefiaiaxrei, or the 
meaning of e&)? TeXou? in 1 Cor. i. 8. So again, though we may 
use Calvin's own words, and regard it in truth as a horribile 
decretum that would involve in a predetermined perdition the 
darkened nations of a pagan world, we yet refuse to interpret 
against the usus scribendi of an inspired author, and in a passage 
like Eom. i. 24 we dare not regard a grammatical formula which 
appears in almost all cases to mark purpose, as in this case only 
indicative of issue and result. Lastly, to gather up a handful of 
passages with which party bias has dealt deceitfully, — if we 
regard it as unprincipled that such a word as tXaarripiov should 
be explained away in Rom. iii. 25, perverse that such a plain 
and positive concrete term as Xovrpov should be volatilised in 



* See Maurice, * Unity of the New Testament,' p. 538. 



426 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



Epk. v. 26, Tit. iii. 5, or such a passage as John iii. 5 toned 
down, monstrous that such a clear prohibition as that in 
Col. h. 18 should be evaded by an unauthorized limitation of 
one word (Oprja/cela), or a non-natural explanation of another 
(dyyekwv), — if, again, we recoil from the expressed or implied 
denials of the typical relations of circumcision and baptism, when 
we can put our fingers on such verses as Col. ii. 11, and the ex- 
planatory verse which follows it, — if we start to find the use of a 
strong word (op/cl^co), where we should not have expected it 
(1 Thess. v. 27), suggest the assumption that an Apostle at times 
was not master of, or did not know the value of, the words 
which he was using, — if, with reason, we shrink from and even 
denounce all such instances of prejudice and want of candour in 
our opponents ; yet let us also remember that on the side of 
over-anxious orthodoxy every instance could find its exact 
parallel, and that we may be well reminded ourselves to take 
good heed that we be not ensnared by perverted principles of 
interpretation that have thus long retained such a baneful 
ascendency. On reviewing such a list, does not the conviction 
arise that the " speaking the truth in love " of the Apostle is a 
principle that needs anew to be commended to every interpreter 
of Scripture ? and does not also the melancholy reflection rise 
with it that it is, perhaps, almost exclusively owing to the long- 
neglect of this principle that we must ascribe the present state of 
parties, and then present attitudes of increasing hostility and 
antagonism ? 

12. But to pass from these preliminary comments to the main 
question with which we are now more especially concerned, let 
us proceed to consider what, judging from the experiences of 
the past and the present, seems to be the most befitting and 
trustworthy method of interpreting a Volume bearing such 
striking and unique characteristics as we find in the Holy Scrip- 
tures. The answer, it can hardly be doubted, after what has 
been said in the earlier portion of this essay, must be — "the 
literal and historical method,'"' that method which not only con- 
cerns itself with the simple and grammatical meaning of the 
words, but also with that meaning viewed under what may be 
termed, for want of a better word, its historical relations, viz., as 
illustrated by facts, modified by the context, substantiated by 
the tenor of the Holy Book, and receiving elucidation from 



Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS JNTEEPEETATION. 427 



minor specialities and details. On the general propriety of such 
a method there will not be, perhaps, any very great differences 
of opinion. On the particular rules for carrying out the method 
we must naturally expect considerable debate and disagreement. 
For example, the seemingly comprehensive and plausible rule 
which has been lately so much pressed upon our attention — 
" Interpret Scripture like any other book" — has already been 
seen to be at best only of limited application, and to involve 
assumptions — e. g. the resemblance of Scripture to other books 
in respect of its having one and only one meaning- — which we 
have apparently had the fullest reasons for refusing to concede. 
Many just objections may also be urged against other rules that 
have been proposed, especially against those which, tacitly 
assuming an exaggerated amount of figurative language in the 
Scriptures, tend to exempt many portions of the inspired Volume 
from being regarded to mean what they actually say, and many 
declarations from having assigned to them their real force and 
significance. It is scarcely too much to say, that most of these 
modern rules have involved some sinister tendency, and have 
been based on very thinly covered assumptions of an amount of 
error in the Scriptures that is totally undemonstrable. In this 
real difficulty of accepting what has hitherto been advanced, we 
will ourselves venture to propose for consideration a few short 
canons of a very simple nature which, perhaps, may be found 
practically useful in carrying out the method of interpretation 
above alluded to. Not to be unnecessarily minute, we may first 
specify, with illustrations, four rules or principles, two of which 
relate rather more to the letter, two rather more to the spirit 
and applications of it. Whether we need any further rule will 
be best seen as we proceed. 

The first rule is an extremely obvious one, yet a rule which, 
if it had been always followed, would have spared the Church a 
large amount of bitterness and controversy. It is simply this, — 
Ascertain as clearly as it may be possible the literal and grammatical 
meaning of the words : in other words, ascertain first what is the 
ordinary lexical meaning of the individual words ; and next, what, 
according to the ordinary rules of syntax, is the first and simplest 
meaning of the sentence which they make up. . . . We almost 
turn away with a smile from such a thread-bare rule, and yet 
there is really no rule that has been less followed in the inter- 



428 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



pretation of the New Testament ; and none which, in spite of all 
boasted recent improvement, it is more necessary calmly to re- 
state and enhance. The full force of Hermann's almost indignant 
protest* against the principles, or rather absence of all principles, 
on which the New Testament was interpreted dining all the 
earlier portions of his life, is now happily rendered somewhat 
unnecessary. A pupil of the great scholar was among the first 
to restore the more reverent and accurate exegesis of an earlier 
day, and since that time there has been a continuance of efforts 
in the same direction. Still it must be clear to every quiet 
observer, that there is a strong desire evinced in many quarters 
to evade the rule, and, under cover of escape from pedantry, to 
endeavour to make Scripture mean what we think, or what we 
wish, not what it really says to us. The mode of procedure is 
simple, but effective. We are first told, as Chrysostom told us 
long ago,t that we are to catch the spirit of the author, and next 
invited to take a step onward, and do what that great inter- 
preter neither did nor sanctioned — rectify by the aid of our own 
<f verifying faculty " the imperfect utterance of words of which it 
is assumed we have caught the real and intended meaning. No 
mode of interpretation is more completely fascinating than this 
intuitional method, none that is more thoroughly welcome to the 
excessive self-sufficiency in regard to Scriptural interpretation of 
which we are now having so much clear and so much melan- 
choly evidence. To sit calmly in our studies, to give force and 
meaning to the faltering utterances of inspired men, ; to correct 
the tottering logic of an Apostle, to clear up the misconceptions 
of an Evangelist, and to do this without dust and toil, without 
expositors and without Versions, without anxieties about the 
meanings of particles, or humiliations at discoveries of lacking 
scholarship, — to do all this, thus easily and serenely, is the 
temptation held out; and the weak, the vain, the ignorant, 
and the prejudiced are clearly proving unable to resist it. Hence 
the necessity of a return to first principles, however homely they 
appear. 

To set forth, if need be, still more clearly the practical value 
of the foregoing rule, let us take a few, almost chance-met 



* In his edition of ' Viger's Idioms,' p. 788. 

t See Chrysostom, 'Comment, on Gal.,' torn, x., p. 801 B (ed. Bened. 2). 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 



429 



examples, in which attention to grammatical accuracy often 
serves to remove difficulties or misapprehensions of old standing, 
and that, too, in questions of considerable importance. Let us 
observe, for instance, how an attention to the force of a tense 
removes all possible difficulty from such a verse as Acts ii. 47, 
and adds a deepened significance to the weighty words we find 
in such passages as 2 Cor. ii. 15. How simply, yet how instruc- 
tively, the simple participles place the two classes before us, each 
under its aspects of progress and development, each capable of 
reversed attitudes and directions, but each at the time of con- 
sideration wending its way ; the one silently moving onward to 
light and to life, the other turning its sad steps to darkness and 
to death ! The mere tense is in itself a sermon and a protest : a 
sermon of blended warning, consolation, and hope, to those who 
will pause to meditate on its significance ; a protest, and a very 
strong protest, against those who tell us that the existence of 
"two classes of men animated by two opposing principles," 
though the teaching of Scripture, " is contrary to the teaching of 
experience." Let us observe again how, upon a due recognition 
of the very same grammatical fact, the imputation of mistaken 
expectations in an Apostle (1 Thess. iv. 17) becomes almost 
wholly wiped away, — how some details of the Last Supper 
i^eiTTvov yivo/xevov, John xiii. 2 : even with the ordinary 
reading yevo/xevov, the correct translation removes difficulties) 
supposed to be conflicting or impossible to arrange, admit of 
easy and natural explanation ; and how, to take a last instance, 
the innocent but pointless imagery of the " cloven " tongues 
(Acts ii. 3) passes at once into something pertinent and intelli- 
gible, and especially consonant with the workings of that Eternal 
Spirit tlmt divideth " to every man severally as He will." Under 
the application of similar principles of accuracy, much of the 
verbal difficulty disappears in Mark xi. 13, the true force of the 
• iipa combined with the known fact of leaves being posterior to 
fruit, making the reader feel how it was the unseasonable dis- 
play that led to the inference, and how the Saviour drew nigh 
to see if an inference so just was to be substantiated. To acid 
two or three more instances : the great exegetical difficulty in 
John xx. 17 appears modified, if not removed, by taking into 
consideration the tense of the verb airrov (not en/™?) ; a train of 
profound speculation is suggested by the accurate translation of 



430 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



one word in CoL ii. 15 (direfcSvo-d/jLevos), and relations, if not 
established, yet rendered probable between the act specified 
in that mysterious clause and the last three hours of darkness 
on Golgotha. The recent controversy relative to the precept in 
Matt. v. 32 is almost settled when we pause to recognize the 
difference between the nature of the predications respectively 
conveyed by the participle with and the participle without the 
article ; and, to conclude with an instance of a similar applica- 
tion of the same grammatical principle, a very great amount of 
difficulty is removed in the interpretation of the very obscure pas- 
sage, 1 Pet. hi. 18 seq., if, besides adopting the true reading 
TTvev/jbCLTL (not rep irvevfjuari, Rec.) and referring it to the 
Saviour's human spirit, we also observe that the participle 
d7rei6rjcracnv involves no direct predication (" who were "), but 
partially discloses the reason of the gracious procedure (" inas- 
much as they were "), and causes the difficulty ever felt in the 
specification of this one class in some degree to disappear. 

We now pass to a second rule, equally simple and homely 
with that which we have just considered and exemplified, and to 
which it may be considered to form a kind of supplement or 
corollary. It is, in fact, involved in the very definition of the 
true method of interpreting Scripture, and is simply as follows : — 
Illustrate, wherever possible, by reference to history, topography, and 
antiquities. 

On a rule so very natural and obvious little more need be said 
than this, that the ordinary reader can scarcely form any con- 
ception of the strangely different aspects which many of the 
leading events in Scripture — for example, many of the scenes in 
our Lord's life — will be found to assume when the rule is carefully 
observed. We may especially remark this in reference to illus- 
trations from topography. To modern travellers in Palestine 
the student of Scripture is under obligations which as yet have 
not by any means been fully recognized. By the aid of their 
narrative we can sometimes almost place ourselves in the position 
of the first beholders, and see the whole scene of mystery or 
mercy disclose itself before our eyes. The Triumphal Entry 
becomes almost an event in which we ourselves have borne a 
part when we read the narrative with all the illustrations that 
have been furnished by the traveller or the antiquary. We can 
feel ourselves almost led to the spot where the opening view of 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 431 



the Holy City called forth the first shouts of the jubilant multi- 
tude ; we can realize the strange pause, and feel the naturalness 
of the transition from meek triumph to outgushing tears, when 
some turn in the rocky road made the City of the Great King 
rise up suddenly, even as the modern traveller tells us it still 
is found to do, in all its full extent, and in all that stateliness 
and beauty which was so soon to pass away. All the scenes 
near to or connected with the Lake of Gennesareth will be found 
to be brought home to us by any of the better recent descriptions 
of the locality, in a manner and to a degree that we could 
scarcely have conceived possible beforehand. We seem, for 
example, to appreciate, for the first time in all its fulness, the 
allusion to the " city on a hill " (Matt. v. 14) when we are told 
that from the horned hill that has been lately almost agreed 
on as the probable scene of the Sermon on the Mount, the 
heights on which Safed stands are distinctly visible, and form 
the striking object in the distant landscape. We feel, again, the 
force of the /careBr) in Luke viii. 23, when we recall what we 
may perhaps have read but yesterday of the low-lying lake, and 
the deep-cut ravines and gorges in the vast and naked plateau 
behind, down which the storm-wind rushes as fiercely and as 
continuously as of old.* We pause with interest on what other- 
wise might have seemed a mere question of critical detail, when 
we read in the traveller's journal that round a few scattered 
ruins in a lonely wady still lingers a name which brings up the 
Gergesa of the first Evangelist's narrative, and which almost 
forces us to muse on the extreme naturalness of the circumstance 
that he who knew the lake so well should almost instinctively be 
specific, and that the other two narrators should use names of a 
wider reference, and more familiarly known to their Greek or 
their Roman readers.^ How interesting again, in the hands of 
an interpreter who will make it his duty to gather up all the 
items of antiquarian information, is the narrative of the Lord's 
presence among the Doctors in the Temple, or even the briefly 
mentioned circumstances of His hastened Burial ! How well an 
expositor like Meyer, who never fails to use this mode of illus- 
tration in a very telling way, brings at once up before us the 



* See the remarkably interesting de- 
scription in Dr. Thomson's ' The Land 
and the Book,' vol. ii., p. 32. 



f See Thomson, * The Land and the 
Book,' vol. ii., p. 33 seq. 



432 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



scene and circumstance of the healing of the paralytic ! How 
the narrative gains in freshness and interest ; how much nearer 
we seem brought to the past ! Till we made use of this form of 
illustration, the events of the Gospel history, to use the words of 
a popular writer when commenting on this very subject, are 
almost regarded as if they had taken place in heaven : now they 
seem, as they truly were, done on this very work-day earth we 
tread on, under circumstances which the mind can be brought 
fully to realize, and amid scenes which, if the bodily eye has 
not beheld, the imagination can readily depict to itself when 
stimulated and quickened by the narrative of the graphic ob- 
server. The real and vital effect that is thus produced on the 
heart, — especially of the young, — the positive increase to our 
faith that is supplied by this mode of illustration, has been far 
too much undervalued by the modern interpreter. 

A third rule of very great importance, and of a very wide 
range of application, may be stated as follows : — Develop and 
enunciate the meaning under the limitations assigned by the context, 
or, in other words, Interpret contextually . 

The value of this rule and its true and real importance will 
be sensibly felt in all the various forms of applying Scripture, 
and giving its doctrines or precepts then- true and proper signi- 
ficance. As we have already remarked, the present rule has 
rather more to do with the spirit and general sentiment of the 
passage than with the immediate elucidation of the letter. Its 
application, however, is extremely varied and extensive. In 
really numberless cases we have nothing to guide us in our de- 
cisions except the connexion and the general aspect of the pas- 
sage. Whenever we are in difficulty as to the justice or perti- 
nence of a deduction, or find, as we often do find, that gram- 
matical considerations leave us in a state of uncertainty, the 
context is that which acts as the final arbiter. Our rule has thus 
two great uses, — the one on the negative side, the other on the 
affirmative. Under the first aspect, it serves to restrain improper 
deductions or applications ; under the second, it helps in de- 
ciding between two or more competing interpretations, each 
supposed to be grammatically tenable. We will give a few ex- 
amples of its use and application in both cases. To take a 
first instance, is it often that a text has been considered as more 
thoroughly inclusive in its application than the latter part of 



Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTEKPEETATION. 433 

Bom. xiv. 23 (' ' for whatsoever is not of faith is sin ") ? Is there 
any text that in certain controversies is more frequently ap- 
pealed to as final and absolute ? The mere English reader sees 
in the very argumentative mode in which the words are intro- 
duced, a strong confirmation of the axiomatic character of the 
words, and estimates their force, and extends their application 
accordingly. The inaccuracy of the translation of the particle 
(Be) that connects the words with what precedes seems to make 
certain what might otherwise have appeared doubtful, and the 
clause is used without hesitation in its full and unlimited force. 
On the exact extent of the application of such a statement, it 
may not be easy, nor indeed are we called upon, to express any 
very definite opinion ; but with regard to its plain, primary, and 
general meaning, we can scarcely be in difficulty or hesitation. 
When we look back at the context and consider the subject- 
matter, we may surely say, without fear of contradiction, that 
the words in the passage before us were not meant to be ap- 
plied to every imaginable case, but to be restricted to scruples 
or cases of conscience that bear some analogy to the instances 
which the Apostle is discussing. Take, again, on the other side, 
such a text as Phil. ii. 12. The concluding clause is doubtless 
most useful as a corrective to the many unlicensed estimates of 
the course of the Divine procedure in man's salvation, but to 
dwell upon such a text as in any degree favouring the idea 
that, in the fullest sense of the words, our salvation is in our 
own hands, is simply to ignore the important fact that the next 
verse supplies the confirmatory ground (yap) of the command, 
by stating that it is God that supplies both the will and the 
energy. To take a last instance : Can anything really be more 
unreasonable than what has been lately said about our practical 
neglect of certain commands given by our Lord, especially such 
a command as Matt. v. 34 ? If we look only at the verse by 
itself, dislocated from the context, it might reasonably be 
thought to be a command which was designed to include every 
form of adjuration, judicial or otherwise. When, however, we 
look at the verse in its proper connexion, the limitation becomes 
apparent, — "Eo-to) Be 6 \6yos vpuwv, Nal vat, Ov oij (ver. 37). 
Surely, without any casuistry or subtlety, these last words, with 
their plainly implied reference to general life and conversation, 
may be rightly urged by the interpreter as showing the true and 

2 F 



434 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



real aspects of the prohibition, and may exempt the Saviour 
from the charge of having, by an acceptance of the form of ad- 
juration used by Caiaphas (Sv elira^, Matt. xxvi. 64), practically 
violated His own command.* 

To exemplify the second aspect of the rule, we may take 
almost any disputed text that suggests itself to the memory, and 
we shall at once see the use and application of the rule. Let 
us take, for instance, the contested words Sea tt}? re/cvoyovlas, 
1 Tim. ii. 15. Here we have at least two competing transla- 
tions : the one which gives the substantive a somewhat vague 
but still plausible application, the other which connects it with 
the great Promise. The article, especially when thus present 
after a preposition, throws some weight in the scale ; the con- 
text, in which the allusion is specially to Gen. hi., and to the 
circumstances of woman's first transgression, seems to decide the 
question. So, again, to take another example out of the same 
Epistle, it has long been doubted whether the command in 
ch. v. 22, refers to Ordination or to Absolution. In favour of 
the former there is a very general consent among the oldest and 
best interpreters, and much may be urged in its favour ; when, 
how r ever, we carefully consider the context, the preponderance 
seems so much on the side of the latter, that, in spite of the 
amount of authority on the other side, we shall perhaps find it 
difficult to resist coming to the decision to which a due obser- 
vance of the rule of contextual interpretation seems certainly to 
lead us. To take a last instance: the exact meaning of the 
formula Sofci/ubd^eiv ra $ia<j>epovTa s used on two occasions by St. 
Paul (Rom. ii. 18, Phil. i. 10), has always been considered very 
doubtful, owing to the differences of meaning which each of the 
two verbs will fairly admit of. As far as lexical usage goes, the 
words may be understood to imply a discrimination between 
things that are different, or a proving, and thence approval, of 
what is excellent. Which meaning are w r e to adopt ? In the first 
passage where the words are used we have but little to guide us 
either way ; but in Phil. i. 9, the prayer for an increase of love 
in knowledge and moral perception expressed in the preceding 
verse seems to decide us in favour of the latter view, — love being 



* See Archdeacon France, 'The Example of Christ and Service of Christ,' 
p. 109. 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 435 



more naturally shown in approval of what is excellent, and so 
worthy of love, than in a mere discrimination between elements 
or principles that involve distinctions or degrees of difference. 

We now come to the fourth rule, which, as the very terms 
in which it is expressed will sufficiently show, is of an importance 
not inferior to that of any one of those which have preceded. 
It may be thus expressed : — In every passage elicit the full signi- 
ficance of all details. 

The rule seems to speak for itself. Under one aspect it bears 
a kind of supplemental relation to the first and second rules ; 
under another it will be found to assist in applications of the 
third rule, as being frequently concerned with the meanings of 
connecting particles, and so with the contextual relations of the 
passage, and its general logical or historical drift. It thus, 
though at first sight a mere rule of detail and of the letter, has 
much to do with the spirit of the passage, and will be found emi- 
nently useful in suggesting deductions. As the third rule served 
to regulate the applications of Scripture, so this fourth rule will 
be found to have much to do with the incidental inferences which 
may be drawn from it. Further comments seem unnecessary. 
Let this one remark, however, be made, — that the rule, besides 
being obviously a rule of common sense, is really, in the case of 
the Scripture, a rule of necessity and duty. If we believe the 
Scripture to be inspired of God, then it surely follows that we 
must never rest satisfied till we have elicited the fullest and most 
complete significance of every item of the heavenly Eevelation 
thus mercifully vouchsafed to us. It becomes positive unfaith- 
fulness not to dwell upon every clause, every word, every par- 
ticle, if we have any real and heart-whole belief that what we 
are permitted to read are indeed, as they were rightly termed 
by an Apostolical Father, " the true sayings of the Holy Ghost." 
It is not that we are hampered with any theory of verbal or 
mechanical inspiration ; it is not that we completely sympathize 
with the somewhat restricted view (noble, however, in its very 
restrictedness) of a great Biblical critic* of our own day, that 
every individual word of Scripture is written by the very finger 
of God ; it is simply because we know that in every case words 
are the appointed media of ideas and sentiments, and believe, in 



* Dr. Tregelles, Preface to ' The Book of Revelation.' 

2 F 2 



436 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



the case of Scripture, that both the ideas are heaven-sent and 
the sentiments inspired. Knowing this, and believing this, can 
we deem it otherwise than our highest duty and privilege to ex- 
haust the fullest significance of the outward letter, when it con- 
tains enshrined in it an inward spirit thus holy and Divine ? 

To come to examples. The first and largest class of cases 
which may be alluded to, as exemplifying the value and useful- 
ness of the rule, are those in which much depends on the true 
force and meaning of the various connecting particles, whether 
of cause, inference, or consequence. These, however, we must 
be content merely to allude to, as examples of this kind can 
scarcely be adduced without fuller remarks on the general 
bearings of the passage than our limits will permit. Let one 
instance, however, be given, and that in one of the most im- 
portant of the doctrinal passages of the New Testament,- — Phil, 
ii. 6. Here it is scarcely too much to say that the interpretation 
turns mainly on the proper recognition of the use and force 
of aXXa when following a negative, and on the remembrance 
that in such cases it marks a full and clear antithesis between 
two members of a clause, " not this — but that." Apply this 
to the passage before us, and we see that the words oi>x apira<y- 
fjbhv rjyrjo-cLTo k. t. \. must be understood to convey some idea 
distinctly antithetical to aXXa iavrbv iicevcocre, and that no in- 
terpretation can be safely regarded as admissible in which this 
condition is not fully satisfied. Let this one example be suffi- 
cient ; but let it carry with it both a suggestion and a protest : 
a suggestion, that in many a contested passage similar methods 
of grammatical generalization may be applied with equal sim- 
plicity and success ; and a protest against mere assumptions that 
the particles of the New Testament can ever be safely neglected, 
or quietly disposed of as mere "excrescences" of a vitiated 
style. 

A second and large class of instances to which the rule 
applies, are passages in which simple and comparatively insigni- 
ficant details are found, when properly considered, to supply 
some fact of real historical interest. The Gospels, especially, 
supply us with a vast list of striking and suggestive examples. 
To name only a few. Of what importance, historically considered, 
is the simple addition of the word c lepovaa\r)/jL in Luke v. 17, as 
showing the quarter whence the spies came, and marking, 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 437 



throughout this portion of the narrative, that most of the 
charges and machinations came, not from natives of Galilee, 
but from emissaries from a hostile centre! What a picture 
does the rjv upodycDv avrovs of Mark x. 32 present to us of 
the Lord's bearing and attitude in this His last journey, and 
how fully it explains the i0afi/3ovvro which follows ! How 
expressive is the single word /ca9r}/jLevai (Matt, xxvii. 61) in 
the narrative of the Lord's burial, as depicting the stupefying 
grief that left others to do what the sitters-by might in part have 
shared in ! How full of wondrous significance is the notice of the 
state of the abandoned grave-clothes in the rock-hewn sepulchre 
(John xx. 7) ! what mystery is there in the recorded position 
and attitude of the heavenly watchers (ver. 12) ! What a real 
force there is in the simple numeral in the record of the two 
mites which the widow cast into the treasury ! she might have 
given one (in spite of what Schoettgen says to the contrary) ; she 
gave her all. How the frightful ea of the demoniac (Luke iv. 
34) tells almost pictorially of the horror and recoil which was 
ever felt by the spirits of darkness when they came in proximity 
to our Saviour (comp. Matt. viii. 29 ; Mark i. 23, v. 7 ; Luke 
viii. 28), and what light and interest it throws upon the kclI IScov 
k. r. A. of Mark ix. 20 in the case of the demoniac boy ! Again, of 
what real importance is the simple iropevOels both in 1 Peter 
iii. 19 and 22! How it hints at a literal and local descent 
in one case, and how it enables us to cite an Apostle as attesting 
the literal and local ascent in the other ! When we combine the 
latter with the dve^epero of Luke xxiv. 51 (a passage undoubtedly 
genuine), and pause to mark the tense, can we share in any of 
the modern difficulties that have been felt about the actual, and 
so to say material, nature of the heavenly mystery of the Lord's 
Ascension ? 

We pause, but only to pass onward by a very slight transition 
to a third class of passages in which important deductions may 
be made from details which an ordinary reader might think of 
the most trivial or accidental nature. Who, for instance, would 
take much notice of the order in which certain provinces are 
enumerated in 1 Peter i. 1 ? and yet, from the general direction 
the order involves (East to West), the locality of the writer has 
been surmised at, and an item supplied toward settling the 
geographical question in chap. v. 13 of the same Epistle. Who, 



438 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



again, would be likely to pause much on the fact that Samaria 
was placed in order before Galilee in Luke xvii. 11 ? and yet, 
unless we adopt a very unnatural explanation of the passage, the 
order may be considered as placing the verse in connexion with 
John xi. 54, and as pointing to the interesting fact that the 
last journey of our Lord was a kind of farewell-circuit, which, 
beginning from Ephraim, extended through Samaria, Galilee, 
and Persea, and terminated at Bethany and Jerusalem. Few 
perhaps would at first sight be inclined to pause long on the 
words ip%6jj,€VG$ diro dypov used both by St. Mark (ch. xv. 21), 
and St. Luke (ch. xxiii. 26) in reference to Simon of Cyrene ; 
and yet they supply some ground for drawing the inference 
that, in the earlier part of the day referred to, field-work had 
been done, and consequently that it was not Nisan 15, but 
Nisan 14, and that thus, even according to the Synoptical 
Evangelists, the Lord celebrated the Last Supper on the day 
preceding the legal Passover. Again, would not the term 
" green grass" (Mark vi. 39) seem to imply but little? and yet 
this specification of the graphic Evangelist exactly harmonizes 
with what we learn from another Evangelist (John vi. 4), viz., 
that the time was spring, and further renders the supposition 
that the rich plain at the north-eastern corner of the lake of 
Gennesareth was the scene of the Feeding of the Five thousand 
in every respect worthy of attention. Lastly, the agitated 
words of Mary Magdalene to St. Peter (John xx. 2) might be- 
thought of very little use in helping to decide between conflicting 
views on the harmony of this portion of the narrative : yet from 
the plural oiBafiev, when compared with olSa, ver. 13, we seem 
justified in drawing the important inference that though St. 
John only specifies Mary Magdalene as having gone to the 
tomb, he was nevertheless perfectly well aware, that, even as 
she herself implies, there were others who went with her to 
do honour to the Holy Body. 

Our four rules of interpretation have now at length been 
stated and illustrated. That they are important, and of con- 
siderable practical use, will perhaps have now been made plain 
by the examples which have been adduced. From these we 
shall probably have perceived that the rules have not only their 
positive but their negative uses ; and that, while the first two 
rules are serviceable in tending to ensure precision and stimulate 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 439 



research, the second and third are no less useful in restraining 
prejudice, and checking that impatient and over-hasty method 
of reading the Scripture which will not pause to seek in the 
text for the associations that are really to be found there. 
Further, the rules proposed have apparently the merit of being 
simple and obvious. They involve no refinements, and maybe 
expressed in very few words : all the four being, in fact, reducible 
to one general canon — Interpret grammatically, historically, con- 
textually, and minutely. 

But the real point of interest has yet to be discussed. 

On carefully considering the nature and characteristics of 
the above rules, it must be plain to the thoughtful reader that, 
though useful and adequate exponents of the grammatical and 
historical method of interpreting Scripture, they are still rules 
that might be applied with nearly equal success to the inter- 
pretation of any other collection of ancient documents. There 
is nothing in any one of them that makes it especially a rule 
of interpreting Scripture. We have really to a certain extent 
been agreeing to interpret Scripture like any other book. It 
is true that we have advocated a greater punctiliousness than 
would be thought necessary even for interpreting Plato or 
Aristotle ; it is true that we have pleaded for a minuteness of 
attention to detail, which in the case of an ordinary Greek 
writer would be tiresome and pedantic ; still there is plainly no 
feature in any one of the rules that can fairly be considered as 
of such an unique character as we should expect to find in the 
rules for the interpretation of an unique . book ; and, if our 
premises are right that Scripture is really unlike any other 
book in numerous points, we should certainly expect to find in 
numerous points that our present rules are insufficient and 
incomplete. 

And so we find them. 

There are at least three large classes of passages in which 
they fail in ascertaining for us the true mind of Scripture ; and 
these very failures, it will be observed, force upon us additional 
rules, gradually more and more of an unique character, till we 
find ourselves at last frankly accepting the yet lacking general 
rule of true Scriptural interpretation. But let us not anticipate. 
We have said there are at least three classes of passages for 
which the above rules are not sufficient. These may be defined 



440 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



roughly, as (1) passages of general difficulty, where the context 
gives us no means of deciding between two or more competing 
translations, of equal correctness in point of logic or grammar ; 
(2) passages of doctrinal difficulty, where either the tenor of the 
declaration is doubtful, or where opposing deductions have been 
made as to the doctrine actually conveyed ; (3) passages of what 
may be termed theological difficulty, i. e. where the fact specified 
or the principle referred to involves mysterious relations between 
things human and Divine which are at best very imperfectly 
known to us. In all these three cases, especially the two last, 
the rules we have discussed, though of the greatest use in 
clearing away preliminary difficulties, often leave the main 
difficulty untouched. Let us illustrate this by a few examples, 
and feel out by degrees for the further rule or rules that are 
still needed for our guidance. 

(1.) Let us take for our first example a clause from a passage 
of general difficulty, and indisputably of great importance, the 
opening verses of St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. In the 
third verse much turns on the exact meaning of the peculiar 
term Iv rot? eirovpaviois, and (to narrow the question by 
leaving unnoticed obviously untenable interpretations) on a 
decision of the question, — -whether, with the Greek expositors, 
we are to give the words an ethical reference, or whether, with 
the Oriental versions, we are to conceive the words only to refer 
to locality. The context does not seem definitely to favour 
either view ; and grammatical considerations, it is almost unneces- 
sary to add, leave the matter equally undecided. In other 
words, our first and third rules, on which, in all cases of local 
difficulty, we almost wholly rely, here fail to guide us. How 
then are we to decide ? If we turn to the best modern commen- 
taries we shall find, and rightly find, that the local meaning is 
now very generally adopted, such seeming certainly to be the 
meaning in the other passages in the Epistle (ch. i. 20, ii. 6, hi. 
10, vi. 12) where the formula occurs. In a word the usus scri- 
bendi of the author has decided the question. . . The meaning 
of the difficult and similarly ambiguous expression GToiyela rod 
tcoo-fjLov (Gal. iv. 3) is usually decided, though conversely, on 
the same principle ; a comparison of the passage with Col. ii. 8, 
20 seeming to cause the arguments in favour of the ethical 
meaning (rudimentary religious teaching of a non-Christian 



Essay IX.] SCBIPTUKE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION, 441 



character) decidedly to preponderate. . . Somewhat similar prin- 
ciples are used in deciding on the meaning of the doubtful irapa- 
6rjK7]v (Bee. 7rapaKara0r)K7]v) in 1 Tim. vi. 20 compared with 
2 Tim. i. 12, 14. . . In a much more difficult passage to which 
we have already alluded, Col. ii. 15, a great part of the obscurity 
rests on the first clause, and especially on the meaning of the 
word a7r€fc8v<rd/jL£vos. In spite of the contextual argument that 
may be drawn from the meaning of the associated participle 
6piajuLj3evcras, the translation of the Vulgate (' exspolians ') and 
indeed of our own Authorized Version, is now commonly given 
up by careful scholars in favour of the more grammatically 
accurate, but certainly at first sight less intelligible " exuens 
se " of the Claromontane and Coptic Versions. What has led to 
this decision ? To a certain extent grammatical precision, but 
mainly the undoubted use of the word by the Apostle a few verses 
later (Col. iii. 9) in the second of the two senses just specified. 

But the examples above alluded to have had mainly to do 
with verbal difficulties. Exactly the same, however, might be 
shown in cases of difficulties in the sentiment conveyed. Of this 
let 1 Pet. iii. 19 and ch. iv. 6 be briefly specified as examples. 
They are sister-texts, and so clearly allude to a kindred mystery, 
that no interpreter of the one passage would fail to refer to the 
other and be guided by it, as supplying him with the most natural 
and indeed authoritative illustration. If, for example, he felt 
swayed by the local term iropevOeh in the first passage, he would 
probably find much difficulty in believing that the term ve/cpocs 
in the second passage was to be referred to the spiritually dead, 
those " dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. ii. 1), rather than to 
the dead in the ordinary and physical meaning of the term. If 
one passage has a definite and local reference, so apparently 
has the other. The same may be said of the excessively diffi- 
cult passages Col. i. 19 and ch. ii. 9, the latter of which supplies 
the only authoritative hint for the translation of the former. 

Now to what do all these examples point but to this, — the 
admission that difficulties, even of a very serious nature, are 
often to be removed by attending to the usus scribendi of the 
author ; or, in other words, the plain and serviceable rule 
emerges to view, — Let the writer interpret himself. 

But it will certainly be said, this is exactly what is or ought 
to be done in the case of any other writer whose precise meaning 



442 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



we wished to ascertain. True ; but the difference of the subject- 
matter makes the two cases really very far from identical. In 
the one case the writer may be dealing with subjects in which 
the assumption of a regular and consistent way of expressing 
himself in reference to them may be deemed perfectly reasonable 
and natural. In the other case, the assumption really amounts 
to nearly as much as this, — the expression of a conviction, that 
in discussing subjects often transcending human faculties, and in 
communicating the mysteries of a revelation from God, the writer 
is consistent with himself. The rule above-mentioned, in the 
case of one of the New Testament writers, is really little less 
than an express recognition of a general and pervading inspira- 
tion, — an influence which, contrary to what might have been 
looked for in the case of a writer on subjects above man's natural 
powers, kept the writer always in harmony with himself, and his 
words always self-explanatory and consistent. 

(2.) But, to pass onward, let us next observe what amplifica- 
tions of the rule are suggested by examples of the second class 
of Scriptural difficulties. Let us begin with a passage of very 
great difficulty, principally of a doctrinal nature, and one in 
which interpreters have arrived at widely different results, — the 
description of the Man of Sin in 2 Thess. ii, 3 seq. Here no 
interpreter would probably fail to refer to the parallel supplied 
by Daniel (ch. xi. 36 seq.), on the one hand, and to the descrip- 
tion of the characteristics of Antichrist as given by St. John in 
Ms first Epistle (ch. ii. 22, iv. 3 seq.), on the other. The expo- 
sitor would in fact seek for his most trustworthy elucidation of 
the passage before him in two books of Scripture written by two 
authors, a Prophet and an Evangelist, between whose dates 
there was probably nearly as great an interval as 600 years. 
Does not this point to a tacit amplification of the preceding rule 
and does it not, in effect, amount to this, — Where possible, let 
Scripture interpret itself, or, in other words, Interpret according 
to the analogy of Scripture ? 

If this be stated fairly and correctly, is it not clear that the 
assumptions that were practically involved in the former rule, 
Let the writer interpret himself, become still more significant and 
suggestive ? According to the obvious tenor of the latter rule, 
Scripture appears tacitly to be recognized as an organized and 
harmonious whole, all parts of which are so quickened by the 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 443 



same life and animated by the same Spirit, that no sentiment of 
any one of the Sacred Writers can ever receive a more con- 
vincing and trustworthy interpretation than that which is sup- 
plied by the sentiments or expressions of another. This, properly 
considered, practically amounts to an admission of the inspiration 
of Scripture of the most clear and decided kind. 

But let us take yet one step further, and consider the inter- 
pretation of a clause in another passage of doctrinal difficulty 
which all will agree in deeming of the most profound importance. 
What is the true meaning of the words nrpwroTOKos irdaiq^ 
fcrlcrecos (Col. i. 15) in their reference to the Eternal Son ? 
Here we have two interpretations, widely different, yet both 
grammatically tenable, and one (the second) considered merely 
with regard to grammar, perhaps even obvious and plausible. 
According to the one interpretation, our Lord would be repre- 
sented as " begotten before every creature," and the reference 
would be to the eternal generation of Christ ; according to the 
other, it would be " first-begotten of every creature," or, as in the 
Syriac, "of all creatures," — prior to them in origin, yet a created 
being like themselves. Which view are we to take ? Grammar 
is silent, the context difficult and not decisive (the following iv 
avTM is probably not " by Him "), the reasoning deep and 
mysterious. The answer of every calm and attentive reader of 
Scripture will probably be promptly given, — " Undoubtedly the 
former." But why ? " Because the whole tenor of Scripture is 
opposed to the latter view." But how can this tenor of Scripture 
be confidently stated ? on what does the assertion rest ? Is it 
the result of actual and rigorous investigation of the whole of 
Scripture, or mere reliance on the opinion of the safe side? 
"No, neither the one nor the other." Then on what is the 
adoption of the former of the two views really based ? " On the 
teaching of the Creeds, as the authoritative expositions of the 
true tenor of Scripture." In other words, the example has at 
last led us to the full expression of the rule that has been 
gradually disclosing itself. Scripture itself has at length taught 
us, by the gentle leading of its own difficulties, the true and vital 
principle of all really Scriptural exegesis, — Interpret according 
to the analogy of Faith. 

And this is the rule. This the rule — carped at, as it has been, 
by the sceptical, disregarded by the self-confident, violated by 



444 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



party bias, slighted by the disloyal, and derided by the profane — 
to which we have at last come, almost by an inductive process, 
and with the aid of which, in conjunction with preceding rules, 
we may even venture to draw near to the third class of difficul- 
ties, — the great and the deep things of God. 

(3.) Into these, however, we cannot now even attempt to enter. 
Our limits wholly preclude us from discussing passages of which 
each would require not only a lengthened consideration of the 
context, but also the introduction of details which would be un- 
suitable in a general essay like the present. To show, however, 
what class of passages we are alluding to, we will pause simply 
to specify a few that now suggest themselves, and may partly 
justify the distinctions above laid down. In addition to 1 Pet. hi. 
19 and others, above alluded to, which perhaps may seem to 
belong more exactly to the present class, let us specify Matt, 
xxvi. 29, xxvii. 52 ; Mark xiii. 32 ; Luke x. 18 ; John xxi. 22 ; 
Eom. viii. 19 seq., 26, ix. 18 seq. ; 1 Cor. iii. 13, vi. 3, xv. 28 seq. ; 
2 Cor. v. 2 seq., xii. 2 seq. ; Eph. i. 12, 23, ii. 2 ; Col. i. 19, 20, 24 ; 
1 Thess. iv. 15 seq. ; Heb. iv. 12, vi. 4 ; 2 Pet. ii. 4, iii. 10 ; Jude 6, 
9 ; and, it is necessary to add, the greater part of the Book of 
Kevelation. 

On one of these passages, however, and on one only, let us 
make a passing comment, and that because the passage has been 
more than once alluded to as a corrective and counterpoise to 
what are termed high views of the Divinity of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. The passage is Mark xiii. 32, the words of which, 
whether considered in reference to the occasion or to the con- 
text, merit, indeed, some higher description than " simple and 
touching," and are, as they have always been deemed to be, among 
the most deep and solemn that have ever been uttered in the 
ears of man. Yet if we interpret them according to the analogy 
of Faith, and, let us not fail to add, according to the very im- 
plied limitations of the passage itself, we can feel no difficulty as 
to their true meaning. In the very silent logic of the associated 
terms, the ouSe/?, the oi ayyekoi, ol Iv ovpavco, we feel a kind of 
implied circumscription, which seems to prepare us for the sense 
in which we are to understand the culminating ovBe 6 vlos, " none 
in earth, none in heaven, nay not even the Son," in so far as He 
shares any element in common with either, in so far as He 
vouchsafes to assume finiteness and corporeity. What we in- 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 445 



stinctively surmise as we read the passage, the analogy of Scrip- 
ture and Faith assures us of, — that when the Lord thus spake to 
His four chosen Apostles, He does virtually assure us that He was 
so truly man, that when He assumed that nature He assumed it 
with all its limitations, and that in that nature He vouchsafed to 
know not what as God He had known from everlasting. Why 
are we to be deterred from this ancient interpretation, why are 
we to obelize the words with Ambrose,* or regard them as a con- 
ventional statement with Augustine, -f- when they admit of an 
explanation so simple, and so consonant with all that we are told 
of Him who vouchsafed not only to be incarnate, but to increase 
in wisdom, and to be a veritable sharer in all the sinless imper- 
fections of humanity? Is there really any greater difficulty in 
such a passage than in John xi. 33, 35, where we are told that 
those holy cheeks were still wet with human tears while the loud 
voice was crying, " Lazarus, come forth ! " 

13. Tins portion of our subject has thus at length come to its 
close. The four rules of interpreting Scripture have received the 
supplement they lacked. The canon which embraced them has 
now the addition necessary to make it applicable to those passages 
where the difficulties are of a doctrinal nature, and, further, even 
to those still deeper passages where the difficulties arise from the 
profound nature of the revelation, and from the allusions such 
passages may contain to mysteries beyond our full powers of 
comprehension. Scripture interpretation is now not merely to be 
grammatical, historical, contextual, and minute, but it is to be 
also — according to the analogy of Faith. 

Against such a rule, we are well aware, many an argument 
will be urged, many an exception will be taken. We have been 
told, and we shall often be told again, that to interpret by the 
Nicene or the Athanasian Creed is not only to mar the simplicity 
of Scripture, by bringing it in contact with what is artificial and 
technical, but consciously to involve ourselves in a plain and 
patent anachronism. 

To such mere assertions, for mere assertions they really are, it 
is not necessary, after what has been said, to return any formal 
answer. It may be enough to make the two following remarks, 
and with them this portion of the subject shall be concluded : — 



* <De Fide," v. 16 (193). 



f ' De Genesi contr. Manich/ i. 22 (34), 



446 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



First, the charge of anacliroriism may be readily disposed of by 
observing that, in thus interpreting Scripture, we are really in- 
terpreting it by what, in a certain sense, is anterior to it, viz. 
the principles of that faith of which Scripture is itself the expo- 
nent. Ante mare fluctus. What right have we to assume that 
all the early Christian preaching was only the outpouring of 
" attachment to a recently departed friend and Lord " ? With 
what justice can we say that the whole of Christianity was con- 
tained in the words, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
thou mayst be sived," when, even in the very earliest of an 
Apostle's letters, there seems satisfactory evidence (comp. 1 Thess. 
v. 1, 2 Thess. ii. 5) that deeper things were communicated orally 
to the earliest Christian converts than were afterwards committed 
to writing ? Most justly, then, has it been observed that, when 
we thus appeal to the principles of the faith for our guidance in 
expounding Scriptural difficulty, we are interpreting, not by 
"the result of three or four centuries of controversy, " but by 
appeals to fixed principles of Christian doctrine, the greater part 
of which were known, believed, and acted on in the very earliest 
age of the Gospel.* In succeeding centuries these fundamental 
truths may have been couched in terms of greater scientific ex- 
actness ; the various controversies of the times may have caused 
the Church to put forth her doctrines in forms more technically 
accurate or more logically precise, but the substance was the 
same from the very first, and it is on that substance that our 
interpretation of Scripture is really based, it is to that essential 
truth of which the Church is a pillar, that we make our natural 
and reasonable appeal. 

The second remark is this, that those who are much opposed 
to us in their estimate of the character and inspiration of Scrip- 
ture, really in effect admit the principle we are contending for. 
To say nothing of the occurrence on their pages of such terms 
as " the analogy of Scripture," when the subject is the best mode 
of interpreting it, or of the silent but important admission that 
the principle which " enables us to apply the words of Christ 
and His Apostles" is neither more nor less than " the analogy 
of faith,"| — to pass over all these tacit and almost instinctive re- 
cognitions of the one great truth (1 Tim. iii. 15), from which all 



* See Moherly, Preface to ' Sermons 
on the Beatitudes,' p. Iii. seq., where 
this argument id put forward with great 



clearness and force. 

t See 'Essays and Ee views,' p. 416. 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 447 



that lias been said above comes by way of legitimate deduction, 
let us merely take the rule which others have laid down, and 
fairly consider whether the recommendation to "interpret Scrip- 
ture from itself" is not in effect and substance plainly identical 
with much that has been already advocated in these pages. 
Such a rule, in the first place, involves the very important 
assumption which we have above alluded to, viz., that Scripture 
is consistent with itself, even when such consistency might be 
appealed to as a very evidence of its Divine origin ; and in the 
second place, after every possible limitation — viz., that we are to 
understand it to mean interpreting " like by like," — such a rule 
is still, and must remain, based on the recognition of the sound 
and proper principle that Scripture difficulty must be explained 
consistently with Scripture truth. Of this truth the Creeds, espe- 
cially the two shorter, are not only compendious but authoritative 
abstracts, summarily vouched for by the keeper of our archives and 
the upholder of their integrity, the Catholic Church of Christ. 
The same authority might justify us in similarly applying much 
of her own history and traditions as illustrative of Holy Scrip- 
ture, if even not deserving the title of an aid in its interpreta- 
tion. It may be sufficient, however, to claim the Creeds as 
authoritative summaries of Scripture, and so authoritative guides 
in interpreting Scripture, being in fact themselves the epitome 
of that from which it has been properly conceded that Scripture 
ought to be illustrated and expounded. 

§ 4. 

14. The main department of our subject may now be consi- 
dered as brought to its natural conclusion. Two portions, however, 
still remain which require of us a passing notice. They are, in 
fact, the two extremes between which the portion of the subject 
on which we have been recently engaged seems to lie midway ; 
the one relating exclusively to the laws of the letter, the other 
to the principles of applying the spirit, — in a word, the Grammar 
of the Sacred Text, on the one hand, and the various practical 
applications of the fully-ascertained meaning of that Text on the 
other. A few words shall be said on each of these portions of 
our subject, but a few words only, there being by no means that 
amount of misconception and error in reference to either of 
these portions of the subject as to that which lies between them. 
Still a few comments may be profitably made on each. 



448 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



Let us speak first of the application of Scripture, as this 
seems most naturally to follow a discussion on the interpretation 
of it, — application, in fact, being nothing more than interpreta- 
tion in its ultimate and most extended form. 

The different forms which the application of Scripture may 
assume are obviously as many and as diversified as the aspects 
of Scripture itself* We have already seen that Scripture involves 
a system of prophecies and types; we have recognized, also, 
that it contains a wide range of double meanings even in simply 
historical passages ; and, lastly, we have found it to be so per- 
vaded by the Spirit of God, that not only in its sentiments, but 
sometimes even in its very words and expressions (see above, 
p. 408), it is found to involve a deep and a Divine significance. 
These three characteristics at once lead to three corresponding 
modes of application, on each of which, as being one of the 
tln*ee more edifying and practically useful modes of applying 
Scripture, a few comments shall be made. 

I. The subject of Prophecy and Typology is, undoubtedly, one of 
difficulty, and in its practical bearings and expansions still more so. 
It is extremely difficult to lay down any rules, and yet it is very 
precarious to attempt such methods of applying Scripture with- 
out some external guidance. In the case of unfulfilled prophecy, 
especially, the temptation to indulge in unauthorized specula- 
tion is often excessive. Uneducated and undisciplined minds 
are completely carried away by it, and even the more devout and 
self-restrained frequently give themselves up to sad extravagances 
in this form of the application of God's Word. The result is, only 
too often, that better educated and more logical minds, in recoil- 
ing from what they justly deem unlicensed and preposterous, 
pass over too much into the other extreme, and deem Prophecy 
in every form as a subject far too doubtful and debateable ever 
to fall within the province of Scripture application. It is, we 
fear, by no means too much to say, that a great part of the 
present melancholy scepticism as to Messianic prophecy is due 
to the almost indignant reaction which has been brought about 
by the excesses of apocalyptic interpretation. The utmost 
caution, then, is justly called for. Nay, it perhaps would be 
well if unfulfilled prophecy were never to be applied to any 
other purposes than those of general encouragement and conso- 
lation. We may often be thus made to feel that we are in the 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 449 

midst of a providential dispensation, that though our eyes may 
be holden as to the relations of contemporaneous events to the 
future, whether of the Church or of the world, we may yet 
descry certain bold and broad outlines, certain tendencies and 
developments, which may make us wend our way onward, 
thoughtfully and circumspectly, — wayfarers, who gaze with ever- 
deepening interest on the contour of the distant hills, even 
though we cannot clearly distinguish the clustered details of the 
nearer and separating plain. But though it may thus be wise only 
to notice unfulfilled prophecy in the broadest and most general 
way, it is far otherwise with applications or illustrations derived 
from what has either obviously received its fulfilment, or, like 
Deut. xxviii., is so plainly still receiving it, that doubt becomes 
unreasonable and impossible. In this last case, for instance, the 
mere existence of such a prophecy has been with reason ap- 
pealed to as almost sufficient in itself to establish the inspiration 
of the whole associated Pentateuch. More particularly can 
every form of Messianic prophecy be dwelt upon by the conscien- 
tious interpreter. This, indeed, is the loftiest and most blessed 
application of prophecy, for purposes of edification, that man can 
make. Hereby, more especially, are we permitted to realize all 
the deep harmonies between the earlier and the later dispensa- 
tion. In the light shed by Messianic prophecy, the two cove- 
nants seem no longer disunited, but one. The Old Testament as 
it " telleth of Christ that should come," blends insensibly into 
the New, that " telleth of Christ that is come,"* until both 
become recognized as organically connected parts of one Divine 
whole. The Scripture is at length seen and felt to be what it 
truly is — one living Book ; one, because pervaded by the holy 
presence of one ever-blessed Lord ; living, because ever teaching 
of Him who Himself is the Life, and whose " Life is the light of 
Men." ' 

In the case of types, and all the varied forms of supposed 
typical relations between the Old and New Testaments, some 
greater latitude of application may perhaps be permitted. Much, 
probably, will have to be left to that which must sometimes be 
the only guide — the " spiritual understanding " (Col. i. 9) of the 
expounder. Even in such cases, however, it will be found 



* Compare Hooker, 'Laws of Eccl. Polity,' 1. 14. 4, vol i., p. 270 (ed. Keble). 

2 G 



450 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX. 

desirable to recognize some general fixed principles. Special 
rules it is never very easy to lay down ; but perhaps it may be 
said that in tracing out types, the prudent expounder will do 
well to observe, or at any rate conform to, the general spirit of 
these two rules : First, not positively to assert the existence of 
typical relations between persons, places, or things, unless it 
should appear, either directly or by reasonable inference, that 
such relations are recognized in Scripture ; Secondly, even in 
the case of apparently reasonable inferences from Scripture, not 
to press the typical allusion unless we have the consent of the 
best of the earlier expositors. The use and general bearing of 
each rule shall be briefly exemplified. 

The first rule, it will be easily seen, will be especially useful 
in lopping away all those supposed typical meanings which, as 
we have already seen, some even of the soundest of the early 
interpreters were ever discovering even in the simplest incidents 
of the Old Testament. By this rule,, for instance, the mystical 
or typical meaning assigned to Rahab's scarlet thread, or to 
Lot's two daughters, old as they may be, and belonging, as these 
two cases really do, to the sub-apostolic age, must still be regarded 
as at best only precarious fancies. By the same rule, too, many 
of the exaggerated attitudes of popular typology will become 
beneficially restrained. While we may enlarge with all con- 
fidence not only on such undoubted historical types as Adam 
(Rom. v. 14 ; 1 Cor. xv., 45), or M elchizedec (Heb. vii. 3) of 
one kind, and the Flood (1 Pet. iii. 21), or the Red Sea (1 Cor. x. 
2) of another, but even on such clear instances as the rite of 
circumcision (Col ii. 11), the paschal lamb (1 Cor. v. 7), the 
functions of the High-priest on the Day of Atonement, and other 
things alluded to by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
we may feel very suspended in our judgment as to such an 
ancient and, at first sight, plausible type as Egypt and the evil 
world. The acknowledged typical relations of Canaan and the 
Christian's heavenly home, and of the Red Sea and Baptism, 
might seem to throw back some probability on such a relation 
between the world which the Christian renounces and the place 
from which Israel was called ; but such a type could never be 
insisted on : no argument could ever be built upon it, nor could 
it ever claim to be ranked really higher than an ancient and 
ingenious fancy. Nay, even such an almost self-evident type as 



Essay IX.] SCEIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 451 



Isaac, with all its startling coincidences of place and circum- 
stances (Gen. xxii. 6 ; John xix. 17), can scarcely be regarded as 
definitely resting on the authority of Scripture (Heb. xi. 19 does 
not seem to prove it), but can only justly be regarded as an 
inference from its general tenor, though, on the other hand, no 
reasonable expounder in the world could fail to accept it as an 
example that rests on the instinctive and unanimous consent of 
the Church. 

We thus are brought to our second rale, and can now see 
that what otherwise might have seemed superfluous cannot very 
readily be dispensed with. The united judgment of the earliest 
and soundest expositors is, we perceive, not wholly to be set 
aside ; the tradition of the Church not to be rejected when the 
inference from Scripture might seem of a doubtful or suspended 
character. And if the rule be thus useful in its affirmative, un- 
doubtedly it is so in its negative aspects, as serving to repress 
mere conjecture and ingenuity. To conclude with an instance of 
its negative use, we may allude to an ingenious attempt to con- 
nect the circumstances mentioned by all the four Evangelists in 
reference to our Lord and Barabbas, with the sortition hi refer- 
ence to the two goats (Lev. xvi. 5 seq.) on the Day of Atone- 
ment. At first there seems a strange persuasiveness in the 
suggested relations of type to antitype ; nay, there might be 
thought to be some Scriptural basis in the similar comparisons that 
are indicated or hinted at (comp. ch, xiii. 11, 12) in the Epistle 
to the Hebrews. The opinion of the early writers here inter- 
poses a salutary caution. We find that the ceremonies connected 
with the scape-goat, and the somewhat similar ceremonies in 
the cleansing of the leper (Lev. xiv. 2 seq.) were almost unani- 
mously referred alone to Christ, — to Christ, as both dying for us, 
and, by his Kesurrection, living again for evermore. The cir- 
cumstances of the case, it was justly argued, required a type 
wliich, to be complete, must necessarily be two-fold, and which, 
to be fully significant, must present two aspects, as it were, of 
the same antitypal mystery. If it be admitted that the scape- 
goat can, by inference, be deemed a Scriptural type of Christ, 
it is probable that we shall reject the ingenious parallel, and 
accept the view taken by the earlier expositors. 

The substance of the preceding remarks is this, — not, by any 
means, that the typical relations between the Old and New 

2 g 2 



452 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



Testaments are few and limited, for it is really probable that 
they are much more numerous and extensive even than they 
have been supposed to be, but simply that the number of 
examples of such relations that rest on an undoubted Scriptural 
basis is not large, and hence that caution is required in pressing 
as types what cannot actually be proved to be at all more than 
ingenious and plausible analogies. In a word, we may frequently 
and beneficially use typology by way of illustration, but it is not 
often that we can use it as the foundation of an argument. 

II. If caution be required in dealing with types, still more so 
is it necessary in attempting to set forth second meanings in 
passages, historical or otherwise, which have not been authorita- 
tively declared to involve them. It is not unreasonable to 
suppose that the passages which may have further and deeper 
meanings than appear on the surface are by no means of 
uncommon occurrence. In a meditative reading, even of a few 
chapters, we can scarcely fail to meet with passage after passage 
which we feel, almost instinctively, to be fraught with a signi- 
ficance much beyond that of the mere letter, but in the case of 
which we can never positively assert the existence of such a 
meaning, much less state what we deem it to be. In the New 
Testament, the passages winch calm and reasonable expositors 
have adduced as involving second and deeper meanings are 
probably under ten, and out of these the more plausible, — the 
reference of the Parable of the Good Samaritan to our Lord, the 
reference of John vi. 35 to one Sacrament, and of John xix. 
34 seq. to both ; and, lastly, the significance of the position of 
the two thieves (Luke xxiii. 33), — are all so debateable that 
more perhaps can never be said than this, that they serve to 
render it presumable that there are many passages which may 
have second meanings ; not, however, that they substantiate their 
existence. On such a subject then, no rule can be laid down ; 
this only may be said, that he who reads Scripture under the 
persuasion that it often contains depths not yet sounded, and 
meanings not yet ascertained, will certainly read it with far 
greater spiritual profit to himself than he who believes he has 
fully arrived at the mind of Scripture when he has made out 
the mere outward meaning of the letter. The subject involves 
many curious details, such as the recurrence of certain numbers 
(e. g., of " forty " in several incidents both of the Old and of 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 453 



the New Testaments), and the trace of a supposed mystical 
economy of times and seasons ; — but with these the wise and 
reverent interpreter will never overmuch busy himself. He may 
feel and know that God is a God of order, and not of confusion, 
and he may see much in details in which that order seems 
plainly to be traceable, but he will never seek to prove it by an 
appeal to facts that may probably have no such relations as those 
ascribed to them, or by urging principles which all graver 
thinkers would not hesitate to pronounce as illusory or uncle- 
monstrable. 

III. The same caution must obviously be displayed in the third 
form of Scriptural application, — practical deductions from Scrip- 
tural statements. The very principle on which such a mode of 
applying Scripture is based, viz. that Scripture is divinely 
inspired, and that deductions may be safely made from what are 
thus, without metaphor, the very Oracles of God, alike indicates 
the necessity of such caution, and hints at its required amount. 
In all passages, doctrinal or otherwise, in which the meaning 
seems to be clear and unquestionable, deductions obviously may 
be made of such a kind as to assume almost the aspect of 
definite and authoritative revelations. In other passages, in 
which the difficulties are more of what we have termed a theolo- 
gical character, positive deductions will often be found to be not 
only precarious, but presumptuous. They may sometimes be 
permitted for private edification, being in fact a sort of expanded 
form of religious meditation, but can rarely or ever be safely 
pressed upon others, or be profitably drawn out into systematic 
developments. 

To illustrate what we mean by an example : we may rightly 
and properly make some deductions of a definite character from 
such a passage as 1 Thess. iv. 15-17. There both the plain and 
distinct statements of the passage, and the certain fact that this 
was really a definite revelation for definite purposes of Christian 
comfort (ver. 13, 18), seem to warrant our drawing inferences 
and recognizing harmonies with other passages of Scripture 
which, however strange and mysterious they may appear, are 
yet to be considered certain and legitimate. We seem to have 
the fullest right for assuring ourselves that there will be a first 
resurrection (ver. 16 compared with Eev. xx. 5) in which the 
elect will alone participate, that the rising of the holy dead will 



454 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



precede the assumption of the holy living, and that the latter, 
after the similitude of the Lord's Ascension (Acts i. 9), robed 
round by upbearing clouds (iv ve&ekais), perchance the mystic 
chambers of the last change (1 Cor. xv. 52), will leave earth, 
and rise to meet the Lord in the air. Such statements may 
seem revolting to the false and morbid spiritualism of our times, 
but they are statements which the gravest expounders of an 
earlier day (while traditions of the true meaning of such revela- 
tions might yet be lingering in the Church) have not shrunk 
from putting forward, and which may be justly regarded as 
calm, historical conclusions from a deep but historical passage. 

The case is different with such a passage as Matt. xxvi. 29. 
Here we may perhaps allow ourselves, with all reverence, to 
express a humble opinion that the words may allude to some 
participations in the elements of a new and glorified creation, in 
which the Lord may vouchsafe to be united with His elect ; but 
to say more than this, to draw any deductions as to the nature 
of the resurrection-body, would obviously be in the highest 
degree wild and hazardous. Equally rash would it be to draw 
any definite conclusions from such passages as Eph. iii. 9, 10, as 
to the limits of the knowledge of angels in reference to the 
mysteries of salvation (comp. 1 Peter i. 12), or of the 'precise 
part which these Blessed Spirits take in human affairs from 
such passages as Matt, xviii. 10, Heb. i. 14, or from the record 
of such special interpositions as those related in Acts v. 19, x. 
3, xii. 7, al. Even in passages of a simpler nature, our real 
ignorance of the relations between the visible and invisible 
world may prevent our making any positive deductions from 
such passages as Luke iv. 39, or Mark iv. 39 ; though we can 
hardly fail gravely to meditate on the strange fact that in one 
case the seeming recognition of the disease as a hostile potency 
is certainly where we should have least expected it — in the 
record of a physician, and that in the other the warring 
elements were checked by persomfying words, which (with every 
deduction for Oriental forms of speech, or whatever else may 
be used to dilute plain terms) it does seem somewhat hazardous 
to explain away as merely picturesque or rhetorical. Again, to 
take a last instance, we may feel that in the touching words at 
the close of Matt. xxvi. 38 (yprjyopeiTe fier ifiov) some desire, 
on the part of the Saviour of the world, for the sympathy in the 



Essay IX.] SCKIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 455 



dread hour of His agony, of those He loved, is actually though 
mysteriously disclosed. We may muse hereon in adoring 
wonder, and feel, perhaps still more freshly, the blessed comfort 
that flows from such words as Heb. iv. 15, but we forbear 
applying any such statements to the profound questions con- 
nected with the two Natures, and refuse to see in them anything 
more than silent but persuasive hints against the varied assump- 
tions and speculations of Apollinarian error. 

To gather up all, — if in each of the three cases on which we 
have dwelt we would apply Scripture with profit, let us learn, 
first, to use all types not Scriptural ly vouched for, as illustra- 
tions, and not as supplying arguments ; secondly, to recognize 
the existence of second, meanings, but, except in such cases as 
inspiration may have revealed them, not to be wise above what 
is written ; and, lastly, to let our deductions ever be of a devotional 
rather than of a definitely doctrinal or historical aspect, — to accept 
them as often tending much to inward comfort and edification, but 
as rarely adding much to our knowledge of the deeper mysteries 
of Scripture, and never to be so applied without our incurring 
the heavy charge of great irreverence and presumption. 

§ t 

15. One portion of the subject now alone remains to be noticed. 
We have hitherto been concerned mainly with the general 
aspects and spirit of the Sacred Volume ; but, as these must ever 
depend on just recognitions of the laws of the letter, we will 
make a few concluding comments on the language of Scrip- 
ture, and on those grammatical principles by which it seems to 
be ruled and conditioned. 

Our remarks, however, must be confined simply to the lan- 
guage of the New Testament. It is for others to speak of the 
language of the Old Testament, and to state how far our present 
knowledge of the letter of the original is capable of extension or 
improvement, Some of the remarks that have been already 
made, and perhaps some even of the comments that follow, may 
admit of partial applications to the Old Testament ; but it is clear 
that the circumstances under which the two parts of the Sacred 
Volume appear before us, as regards language, are very different, 
and that but little of what is said in reference to the details of 
the one can be pertinently applied to the details of the other. 



456 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



Independently of all the recognized philological differences, we 
have, in the case of the Old Testament, a collection of writings 
which themselves constitute all that deserves the name of the 
literature of the language ; while in the case of the New we have 
a small number of histories and letters which only form a very 
minute, and that too in some respects an exceptional, portion of 
the general literature of the language in which they are written. 
Still some broad principles may remain which may perhaps 
equally apply to the interpretation of the letter in both Testa- 
ments. It would certainly seem that, much as has of late been 
done for the study of the Hebrew language, especially in Ger- 
many, there is still room for a more scientific development of 
many of the laws by which that ancient language appears to be 
governed. There is even now, as a reference to any of the more 
recent commentaries on the books of the Old Testament will 
clearly show, less linguistic precision, less mastery of details, less 
recognition of those bye-laws which, in every language, but espe- 
cially in the Semitic, so much regulate special interpretation, 
less, in a word, of scholarship, as distinguished from learning, 
than we might have expected from the corresponding advances 
in the Greek language. Nay, even in what falls more especially 
under the head of learning, study of the ancient Versions, much 
is still lacking. Our modern commentaries on books of the Old 
Testament are herein scarcely, if at all, more advanced than the 
current commentaries on the New Testament, though in some 
cases, especially in that of the Syriac, and perhaps also of parts 
of the Arabic Version,* more real benefit, from the affinities of 
language, is to be expected from then use in the Old Testament 
than in the New. 

16. But, to pass to that with which we are more immediately 
concerned, — the language of the New Testament, — we may find 
it convenient first to make a few comments of a general nature 
relating to the language as viewed in connexion with earlier or 
contemporary Greek, and then in the second place to append a 
small list of selected comments on such details of syntax as may 
seem to require notice or illustration. 



* It is perhaps right to observe that j son supposed to he, derived from the 

nearly all the other Versions of the j Septuagint. This, of course, greatly 

Old Testament, except of course the I detracts from their value as exegetical 

Vulgate, are known to he, or with rea- ! aids in reading the original. 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 457 



With regard to the general character of the Greek of the 
New Testament, the estimate commonly formed by modern 
writers on this subject appears perfectly correct, viz. that it is 
neither in every respect classically pure on the one hand, nor yet 
simply and essentially Hebraistic on the other, but that it has for 
its basis that " common " or " Hellenic dialect " which the con- 
quests of Alexander and those who succeeded him spread over a 
great part of the East, and which, from involving a mixture of 
dialects, and especially of the Macedonian, has sometimes been 
designated simply by this last-mentioned name. It must not, 
however, be forgotten that this " common," " Hellenic," or 
" Macedonian dialect," though undoubtedly the foundation of 
the Greek of the New Testament, received at least three very 
important modifications when it became blessed by being the 
vehicle of the message of salvation to the world at large. In 
the first place, the writers of the New Testament, though un- 
doubtedly possessing a very competent knowledge of the Greek 
language as used and spoken in their own times, must have often 
thought in their native Aramaic, and so unconsciously have 
imparted that Hebraistic tinge to their language which is 
undoubtedly to be traced in it. The observation is perfectly 
correct that the pure Hebraisms of the New Testament are not 
very numerous, and that they are more of a lexical than a gram- 
matical character,* still it cannot be denied that semi-Hebraisms, 
or traces of this occasionally thinking in their own language 
while they were writing in another, are neither so few nor so 
faint as sometimes has been asserted by writers on this subject. 
No discriminating reader can fail to observe this, especially in • 
the not uncommon tendency to co-ordination, where subordina- 
tion would have seemed more conformable to the spirit of the 
language in winch they were writing ; in the striking predomi- 
nance of the direct over the indirect or oblique form when the 
words or thoughts of another are referred to ; in the partially 
redundant uses of pronouns, and even prepositions, and the cor- 
responding and equally characteristic want of freedom in the 
uses of the conjunction ; in the comparatively rare occurrence of 
the optative mood, and yet again in uses of the infinitive (espe- 
cially in reference to purpose) even more varied than we find 



* See Winer, ' Grammatik des Neutest. SpracK' § 3, p. 26 (ed. 6). 



458 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



tliem in earlier ages of the language. All this cannot fail to 
strike the observant reader, and to remind him how much 
beyond the recurrence of simple and definite Hebraisms, like 
7rp6crcDTrov Xa/jiftaveiv, or fyreiv ^vyrjv, the semi-Hebraisms or 
rather the Aramaic tinge of the New Testament must really be 
considered to extend.* 

Another general difference between the language of the New 
Testament and the language of the ordinary Greek writers of 
the same or even an earlier period, is clearly to be explained by 
the fact that so much of the New Testament is marked, in 
respect of language, by what may be roughly termed oral cha- 
racteristics. The Gospels had only assumed the form in which 
we find them, after some years, at least, of oral delivery. Pro- 
bably the greater part of the Epistles, and certainly by far the 
greater part of those which came from St. Paul, were written 
down from dictation. Even in the book (the Acts) which more 
nearly approaches formal history than any of the others, the 
speeches are not only numerous, but to all appearance faithful 
recitals of words actually spoken. The oral element thus per- 
vades the whole Sacred Volume, and, on the one hand, may 
justly be considered as contributing in a very great degree to that 
combined simplicity and force which is so observable in the nar- 
rative portions, and, on the other hand, is equally clearly to be 
seen and felt in the longer sentences, suspended structures, and 
relapses to a nominative which we so often meet with in the 
epistolary portion, especially in the writings of St. Paul. The 
whole subject is well worthy of attention. It has often been 
alluded to by writers on the language of the New Testament, 
but has never yet received that consideration and recognition 
which it seems most fully to deserve. 

A third difference is to be observed in the use of words and 
terms, in what may be called a specially Christian sense. Words 
sufficiently familiar to the general reader of Greek, e. g., irlans, 
TTLo-revetv, o-corrjpla, o~dp%, /c. r. A,., reappear in the New Testa- 
ment in perfectly new combinations, and are found to be 



* Winer very properly calls atten- | which, though not without some parah 

tion to the existence of two classes of ! lelism in earlier or later Greek, are 

Hebraisms in the New Testament : pure j probably to he referred simply to the 

Hebraisms, and what he terms " im- j influence of the mother tongue. See 

perfect " Hebraisms, or expressions, i ' Grommatik,' § 3, p. 26 seq. 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION". 459 



invested with meanings completely distinctive and peculiar. 
Many of these may be traced to the Old Testament, while 
some others may have been applications in another language 
of expressions not unknown to the Eabbinical writings of 
the day; still, in a general and popular way of speaking, 
they may be considered to mark a specially Christian aspect of 
the language we are considering, and one which is not always 
sufficiently taken into account in comparisons of it with ordi- 
nary Greek. Long familiarity with these terms renders us less 
sensitive to this difference than we are to some others, but to an 
intelligent reader of Greek, in whose hands the New Testament 
was placed for the first time, this perhaps would seem the most 
striking point in which its language differed, not only from that 
of the classical authors, but even from that of the Hellenic 
writers who lived nearer to Christian times. 

These three elements, — a Hebraistic tone of thought, not only 
showing itself in isolated terms but in the connexion and 
dependence of clauses, the oral element, giving its character to 
whole groups of sentences, and the Christian element to words 
and expressions, all combine to place before us a form of the 
" common dialect " as unique as, even in a mere literary point of 
view, it is also interesting and instructive. But though so 
unique it is still neither to be exempted from the application of 
the ordinary laws of the Greek language, nor to be dealt with as 
if it had neither certainty nor accuracy. This last is one of the 
convenient assumptions of the time. Even grammar is thus 
made to bend to prejudice. What seems tolerably certain and 
agreed upon is at once dispensed with whenever the " verifying 
faculty " is thought to demand it. The plausible rule of inter- 
preting Scripture like any other book gives place at once to 
protests against the scholasticism of philology, warnings against 
the danger of making words mean too much, and hints that 
scholarship may not unlikely lead us to impress a false system 
on words and constructions. Into all the forms of this really 
deceitful dealing with written words we will not here enter. 
They can only be dealt satisfactorily with in detail, and disproved 
by a just consideration of individual passages. We may, 
however, dispose of the danger supposed to come from over- 
much scholarship by these two brief remarks : — First, that no one 
is to be esteemed really a good scholar in reference to the New 



460 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



Testament unless he is well acquainted with the minutiae of 
Hellenic as well as of Attic Greek, and knows well when to 
recognize later usage (e. g. [jut] with participles, tendency to 
double compounds, &c), and when (e. g. in tenses, conditional 
sentences, &c.) to apply with some rigour the rules of classical 
Greek. Secondly, let this undoubted fact never be forgotten, — 
that the " common dialect," which we so justly recognize as the 
basis of the language of the New Testament, was really itself 
placed on the corner-stone of Attic prose, and that a good 
knowledge of Attic Greek is simply indispensable. All sound 
scholars are now alike agreed in recognizing two contrary prin- 
ciples in Hellenic Greek : on the one hand a tendency to assimi- 
late provincialisms ; on the other hand a tendency to recur to 
Attic usage, which passes at last often into a hypercritical 
affectation. Are we then to relax our study of a pure phase of 
language which thus implicitly is to be seen and recognized in 
the writings of the New Testament, and which, by being itself 
so capable of precise definition, is ever such a useful standard 
with which to compare supposed deviations or corruptions ? This 
single remark may be appended by way of conclusion, — that if 
the Greek of the New Testament be carefully examined with 
reference to this standard (Attic Greek), it will be seen, clearly 
enough, that the difference is very far from being so great as 
might have been expected, and that it is really more to be felt 
in what is lacking and limited, in the less free use of the particles 
of connexion, and the less facile combination of clauses, than 
in what is definitely solecistic and erroneous. A few instances 
of this latter kind of usage may undoubtedly be found, as for 
instance Xva with a present indicative (1 Cor. iv. 6, Gal. iv. 17*), 
but they are very rare, and, considering the various elements 
that enter into the language of the New Testament, even 
strikingly exceptional. 

17. Let us close this portion of the subject, and illustrate in 
some measure what has been already said, by a short list of such 
systematic details as may perhaps be useful in their collected form 
to the student of the Greek Testament, and may not be wholly 



* The attempt of Fritzche and others 
to explain this hy supposing 'Lva an ad- 
verb, does not seem at all natural or 



plausible. See Winer, ' Grammatik, 
§ 41. p. 259. 



Essay IX.] 



SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 



461 



out of place even in a general essay like the present. We will 
endeavour to avoid all technicalities of language or arrangement ; 
but, for the sake of perspicuity, will adhere to the ordinary 
heads under which such observations are usually distributed. 

(1.) The article claims the first place, and may be said still to 
require more careful study than it has ever yet received, espe- 
cially in regard to its usage in those portions of the New Testa- 
ment which are supposed to be of latest date. We are told, 
indeed, that such discussions have "already gone far beyond 
the line of utility,' 5 but we shall scarcely be moved by such 
comments, when a reference to the pages almost of any expositor 
shows how much uncertainty still prevails on this subject, and 
how common an error it is to press the force of the article when 
it is only present in consequence of the action of some general 
rule. Thus, for example, what the grammarians call the law of 
" correlation," or, to speak more simply, the general rule that if 
two substantives are in regimen, either both will have the 
article, or both be without it, is constantly and sometimes even 
absurdly violated. Words are often pressed as peculiarly defi- 
nite, which only assume the form of definiteness in consequence 
of the action of the general rule ; and, again, deductions are 
made from their supposed indefiniteness when the presence of the 
defining article would be a simple solecism. The omission of the 
article, however, in the later Epistles is perhaps the point which 
at present most requires consideration ; nay, even in the case 
of a writer where we should not have expected it, the Evan- 
gelist St. Luke, the oldest manuscripts, especially as supported 
by the new Codex Sinaiticus, disclose a far greater amount 
of probable omissions than we should at all have been likely, a 
priori, to expect. Careful consideration of these will probably 
lead to some modification of the existing rules connected with 
the use of the article in the New Testament. Meanwhile to 
group hastily together what we know, it may be remarked : — 
(a) That the words which assume the privilege of proper names 
and dispense with the article where it might have been expected, 
are very numerous in the New Testament. Yery important ex- 
amples of this may often be found in the uses of the words Uvev/jua 
and vo/jlos, and doctrinal statements or deductions much modified 
by a recognition of what is now, in the case of both these words, 
a matter of simple demonstration, (b) That the article is often 



462 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



omitted after a preposition, but apparently subject to this sort 
of rough limitation, viz., that when it is the apparent desire of 
the writer to be peculiarly distinct and definite he rarely fails 
to insert it. Of this, 1 Tim. ii. 15 may perhaps be referred to 
as a pertinent example. The rule seems to be in such cases, — 
" Press the article when present, but do not press the absence of 
it when it happens to be absent." (c) The popularly known 
omission of the article after the verb substantive and verbs im- 
plying names or designations, is not always sufficiently remem- 
bered by the interpreter of the New Testament, (d) The amount 
and extent of the omissions of the article where the substantive 
practically coalesces with the clause which follows (e. g. Col. i. 8, 
rr]v vfioiv djdTrrjv iv Tiveufiart, or Eph. i. 15, rrjv /caO' vfias 
tticttlv iv tco Kvplm 'lwo-ov) have not yet, perhaps, been fully 
recognized or agreed upon. Perhaps some rule similar to that 
alluded to in (b) may not be found in the sequel to be much 
exaggerated, (e) Lastly, several examples of what is called 
Granville Sharp's rule, or the inference from the presence of 
the article only before the first of two substantives connected 
with /cat that they both refer to the same person or class, 
must be deemed very doubtful. The rule is sound in principle, 
but, in the case of proper names or quasi-proper names, cannot 
safely be pressed. 

(2.) With regard to substantives, the points that seem most to 
need attention are the different connections and constructions of 
the genitive and, in a less degree, of the dative cases. The use 
of the former, especially when under the regimen of a preceding 
substantive, is peculiarly varied, and will require considerable 
tact on the part of the accurate interpreter. Without descend- 
ing to very minute details, or attempting to discuss all the nine 
or ten divisions into which the various forms of the genitive may 
be separated, we may direct attention to the following selected 
exemplifications of the uses of this case as found in the New 
Testament : — (a) The use of the genitive as specifying something 
in apposition to, or identical with, the noun, by which it is 
governed, e. g., 2 Cor. v. 5, rov appa/Scova rov Hvev/jLaros, Eph. 
vi. 14, rov QoopcLfccL TTjs hiKaiocrvvrj^ • (h) a widely extended use 
to denote the ideas of origination (Rom. iv. 13, Si/caLocrvvrj 
TTLcrrem), and not unfrequently of definite agency (2 Thess. ii. 
13, ayiao-fMos Mveyfjuarrm) ; (c) a still more extended use in which 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 



463 



very varied relations, both of time (Jude 6, Kptm? peyakrjs 
rjfjuepasi) and of place, whether topographical (Matt. i. 11, 
pueTouceaia Ba/3zA&wo?, ib. ch. x. 5, oSo? idv&v) or general (Col. i. 
20, al/na rod aravpov), are all simply and briefly expressed by 
this flexible case. If we add to these (d) a smaller class, in 
which ideas, so to speak, of ethical substance or contents appear 
to predominate (see Eph. i. 13, tov \6yov rrjs akrjOeta? to 
evcuyyikiov ?% crcDTrjpias vpcov, where both ideas appear in adja- 
cent clauses) ; and lastly (e), the not uncommon use of the geni- 
tive to denote the prevailing character or quality (Luke xvi. 8, 
ol/covopbos r?}? a$LKias), — a use which probably owes its frequency 
to the part which, in Aramaic, the dependent noun plays as a 
representative of the adjective, — we shall perhaps have enume- 
rated all the more noticeable forms in which the dependent 
genitive appears in the New Testament. Attention to this 
case, especially in deeper and doctrinal passages, will often be 
found to yield very important practical results, and to suggest 
topics for application which popular writers, who commonly 
treat all this as mere scholastic pedantry, are completely una- 
aware of. 

The use of the dative is much less varied, and may be dis- 
posed of in two or three sentences. If the essential idea of the 
case as that of limitation and circumscription (the whereat case, 
just as the genitive is the where/rom case, and the accusative the 
whereto case) be properly borne in mind, it is not probable that 
even in the less direct uses, — e. g., in reference to ethical locality 
(1 Cor. xiv. 20), rule and measure (Acts xv. 1), &c, any real diffi- 
culty will be felt. The only usage which seems to require any 
notice is one of occasional occurrence, where ideas of instru- 
mentality or manner seem to merge into those of the imaginary 
place where, or the general circumstances owing to which, the 
action is supposed to have taken place. Thus St. Paul writes, 
in Gal. i. 22, that he was dyvoovfjLevo? tw irpoaonrw to the 
Churches of Judea ; — his countenance was not the instrument, 
but rather the imaginary scene of the display of the dyvota. 
Again, he tells his converts at Eome that the Jews (under the 
image of the natural branches) rfj clttmtticl h^eKkdaOnqaav (Rom. 
xi. 20 ; comp. ver. 30, 1 Cor. viii. 7) by which he would seem to 
refer, not to the actual instrument by which, but to the state of 
heart and feeling owing to which the judicial act was performed. 



464 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



(3.) We inay^pass onward to verbs. Here, again, we can only 
make a few general comments, as anything like even a mere 
rudimentary outline of the more striking usages would far 
exceed our present limits. We may remark, however, first, that 
the usual rules of correct Greek are observed very persistently, 
in the moods, tenses, connexion of dependent clauses, and even 
in the refinements of the conditional sentence. In this latter 
case, however, one important element will commonly be found 
lacking, — the optative mood. It occurs very rarely in such 
sentences (comp., however, 1 Pet. iii. 14, 17, Acts xxiv. 19), 
and, indeed, but seldom in the New Testament generally ; its 
rarity of occurrence serving to remind the reader that he is now 
within the precincts of what Lobeck somewhat quaintly terms 
"fatiscens Grsecitas." A second general remark may be made on 
another sign of grammatical degeneracy, the use of the verb- 
substantive with participles, to mark with some distinctness, 
ideas of continuance or contemporaneity. This we find in nearly 
all the writings of the New Testament, and, perhaps, more fre- 
quently than elsewhere, in the writings of an author who we 
might have thought would have been least likely to have adopted 
it, the well-educated and practised St. Luke. The cases, how- 
ever, in which it occurs do not appear at all of a confused or 
promiscuous nature ; but, as we have above suggested, whenever 
the Sacred Writer desired to be particularly definite in reference 
to time and its duration. A third general remark in reference 
to verbs (capable also of being extended to other parts of speech) 
is this, — that compound forms cannot always be safely pressed. 
There appears to have been a very marked tendency in later 
Greek to an increase in composition without hi every case a cor- 
responding increase of meaning, and from this the New Testa- 
ment is not exempt. Caution, however, must be shown in 
applying tins remark, as our knowledge of the exact meaning of 
compound verbs in the New Testament is still very limited. It 
is, indeed, much to be regretted that the German grammarian 
Winer never completed his treatise on this subject. The four 
or five parts of it that have been published are excellent speci- 
mens of a careful and scholarly analysis of a subject that 
requires much reading, and not a little tact and penetration. 

If we allow ourselves to devote a few sentences to matters 
of detail, we may profitably direct attention to four points : — 



Essay IX.] SCBIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPKETATION. 465 



(a) an occasional use of the middle voice in the New Testament 
(Col. i. 6, KapTTo^opovfjuevov, and 1 Tim. i. 16, ivSel^rai, may 
perhaps be cited as examples) in which all tinge of a reflexive 
sense appears lost, and in which we seem to recognize the pre- 
sence of that sort of " intensive " force which the best and latest 
grammarians* have assigned to this yet imperfectly-understood 
voice ; (b) the use of the present tense, not, as we are too often 
told, " for the future," but with its usual proper force to mark 
what is abiding, fixed, and predetermined, especially in reference 
to the course of things as appointed by God (Col. hi. 6 ; Matt, 
xvii. 11 ; xxvi. 2, al.) ; (c) the somewhat expansive use of the 
future in the New Testament, and its partial assimilation of 
various shades of meaning of an imperative character, especially 
when in connexion with a negative (comp. Matt. vi. 5 ; Acts 
xiii. 10 ; Matt. v. 21 ; Kom. vii. 7 ; xiii. 9) ; lastly, (d) the 
uses of present and aoristic participles with a finite verb (espe- 
cially in St. Luke and St. Paul) to mark the ideas of time, 
cause, manner, and concession (comp. Luke iv. 35 ; ix. 16 ; Col. 
1, 3 seq., al.). These uses, though not exhibiting quite the same 
amount of flexibility as in earlier Greek, are still sufficiently 
varied to call for a far greater amount of attention from the 
interpreter than they have yet received. 

(4.) We have now remaining only two groups of words on winch 
observation seems necessary, the particles and the prepositions. 
In regard to their uses we may notice a very clear and instruc- 
tive difference, serving to remind us how sensibly the influence of 
the Aramaic element makes itself felt, both positively and nega- 
tively, in some parts of the syntax of the New Testament. In 
the prepositions, for instance, we observe a redundancy as well as 
variety of use, which, if we did not call to mind the charac- 
teristics of the mother-tongue of the writers, might seem parti- 
cularly strange and perplexing. This desire to imitate the 
expressiveness (in this respect) of the Aramaic, combined, pro- 
bably, with a certain loss of sensitiveness to the full force of 
cases may account for the appearance of the prepositions dirb 
and eK with verbs of " giving " (Luke xxiv. 42), " receiving " 
(Mark xii. 2), and even of " eating and drinking " (Matt. xv. 



* See Donaldson, 'Greek Grammar,' § 432. 2. bb; Kriiger, ' Sprachlekre,' 
§ 52. 8. 

2 H 



466 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



27 ; John iv. 14), where, to say the very least, they would be 
excessively unusual in classical Greek. The same may be said 
of the union of ek and 777)0? with a large class of verbs where a 
dative would have seemed much more consonant with the genius 
of the language. The variety again of the usage of individual 
prepositions is peculiarly striking, and still more so the studied 
accumulations of them in a single sentence, especially in St. 
Paul's Epistles (Rom. xi. 36 ; Col. i. 16, al.). These latter, 
though sometimes perhaps called forth and suggested by doc- 
trinal distinctions (Eph. iv. 6), seem especially to indicate an 
ease and freedom that would have been looked for in vain in 
the ordinary Greek of the time. Equally well marked is the 
general correctness with which these varied usages are dis- 
tinguished. If we except the tendency to over-use, which we 
have already observed, and a few combinations (e. g. of eh with 
some verbs of rest, iv with some verbs of motion, and the ex- 
tended use of the latter preposition to forms and expressions 
where vtto or Bta might have seemed more usual) which, though 
not without parallelism in earlier Greek, do certainly seem to 
reflect some tinges of incipient degeneracy,* or some re- 
miniscences of the mother-tongue, there is really not only no 
prevailing incorrectness whatever in the use of the preposition 
in the New Testament, but very frequently a sharpness and pre- 
cision (comp. Rom. xiii. 1) that reminds the student of the best 
days of the language. When, then, a recent writer on the in- 
terpretation of Scripture urges that in Gal. iv. 13, 81a with the 
accusative is to be conceived as used for or equivalent in mean- 
ing to Bta with the genitive, he not only shows himself a lax 
interpreter of the passage in question, but also shows a de- 
ficient knowledge of a general fact, — the accuracy of preposi- 
tional usage in the New Testament, which ought to have made 
such an assumption seem a priori in a very high degree im- 
probable. 

(5.) In strong contrast to this usage of prepositions stands that 
of the Greek particles. With the exception of kclL s ovv, Be, yap, 



* No trace whatever of that utter 
insensibility to the fundamental mean- 
ing of cases which led the Byzantine 
writers to confound, for example, fiera 
with a gen. and yuero with an accus., 



or to join airb with an accus. or dat., 
avv with a gen., or Kara with a dative, 
is to be found anywhere in the New 
Testament, 



Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 467 

and perhaps also &>? and aXkd, in the uses of which there is not 
only variety bnt sometimes well marked idiomatic force and 
character, there are not many other particles in the New Testa- 
ment which are used with complete ease and freedom. There 
is a certain degree of monotony, a deficient amount of combina- 
tion, and a want of flexibility in the use of the particles of the 
New Testament which stand in marked antithesis to the ease 
and even redundancy winch are to be observed in the use of 
the prepositions. Yet, as it was in the case of the latter, so is 
it with the particles : there is a prevailing accuracy in their 
usage, and a very general conformity to the laws of the language 
in its earlier and better state. There are some exceptional 
aspects, as for instance, the use of fjurj with participles when there 
is no tinge of a subjective negation intended (the rule indeed is, 
" Press ov when connected with a participle, but not jult) "), the 
weakened force of ha, and its occasional use to designate some- 
thing lying, as it were, midway between purpose and result, the 
use of on to introduce another's words in their direct form, com- 
binations like /ca6(o$, and juxta-positions like ap ovv, — such 
there are, but all such childish statements as the use of one 
particle for another, and so forth, are to be dismissed, as they 
have long been dismissed by all better scholars, as very unpro- 
fitable delusions. It is, however, painful to observe how, in 
some quarters, such prejudices still hold their ground, and how 
even those who affect to lay down well-considered rules on 
Scripture interpretation, tell us that " it is an error to interpret 
every particle in the New Testament as if it were a link in the 
argument when it is often a mere excrescence of style." Such 
comments on supposed error are really themselves very errone- 
ous ; and the pages of any one of the better expositors of the 
day, who has attended to the sequence of thought in his author, 
would not only show them to be so, but would also make us 
feel very sensibly how completely subversive they are of all 
principles of faithful and consistent interpretation. The German 
commentaries of De Wette and Meyer are very good standing 
protests against such hasty and ill-considered comments. These 
writers, though in no way pledged to orthodoxy in matters of 
doctrine, have had far too great experience in the language of 
the New Testament to be heterodox in point of grammar. They 
never hesitate to bestow the greatest possible attention on all 

2 h 2 



468 



AIDS TO FAITH. 



[Essay IX. 



minutiae, and exhibit in a very satisfactory way what striking 
results are to be obtained from a careful estimate of connecting 
particles, and how yerj near an approach can be made to the 
mind of the inspired writer by this mode of patient and philo- 
sophical investigation. 

18. This last portion of our subject must now be brought to 
its close. We have left very many points untouched, on which 
comment might seem in some measure desirable, but our 
article has already exceeded its prescribed limits, and it now 
becomes necessary to transgress no further on the patience of 
our readers. Yet it seems impossible to part from those who 
have traversed with us the wide domain which belongs to such 
subjects as those we have considered, without a few words of 
valediction, and a few expressions of mingled anxiety and 
hope. 

Those against whom our observations have been directed will 
probably not be affected by anything that we have urged. The 
tone of self-confidence which marks their writings ; the unfair- 
ness or, to use the mildest term, the slipperiness that pervades 
their arguments ; the really cruel and thoughtless way in which 
they have allowed themselves to scatter doubt and uneasiness ; 
their utter carelessness for the feeble, and the unstable, and the 
many who, with all their frailties and shortcomings, still deserve 
the name of " babes in Christ," — all these many painful charac- 
teristics make us feel that as far as they are concerned we have 
written and have spoken in vain. There are others, however, 
with whom it may not be so. There are kindly eyes that may 
have fallen on these pages, which, though not seeing wholly as 
we see, may yet have been encouraged to gaze longer and more 
earnestly, and to wait gently and patiently for a glimpse of the 
fair landscape that lies beyond what now may seem to them 
only a cloud-land of eddying vapour and wandering storm. God 
in His everlasting mercy, for our dear Lord's sake, grant that it 
may be so ! God grant that such may see and feel that these 
are no cunningly devised fables, no mere arguments put forward 
for love of controversy, no mere assumption of orthodox atti- 
tudes for the sake of self-interest (untrue and ignoble taunt of 
embittered opponents !), but a statement of earnest and serious 
convictions, which deepen with deepening reflection, to which 
every fleeting day bears its tribute of increasing assurance, 



Essay IX.] SCEIPTCJEE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 469 



which every prayer quickens, every blessing stimulates, every 
trial confirms. May they be moved to judge us thus kindly and 
fairly ; and may our poor words be permitted in return to impart 
some comfort in anxieties, and to answer some of those doubts 
with which honest and good hearts are often permitted to be 
tried. 

Lastly, may the great Father of love and mercy draw all who 
love His ever blessed Son, and who, see in Him the propitiation 
for the sins of a whole guilty world, still nearer together. It 
may be, when all was well, we dealt hardly with each other, that 
we thought unkindly and spoke with bitterness. It may be 
even that we have acted in the same spirit, that we have helped 
to break up the household of faith into hostile camps, that we 
have smitten friends and brethren, and led those who would not 
use our shibboleths to the vale of slaughter and spared them not 
But now the foe is on the frontier. If love is still cold, yet at 
least let danger reunite. Let us yield to instincts, if we care not 
yet for principles. Let us do only this, and it may be that even 
thus we may be allowed to see and feel that all was so ordered 
by a loving Father, — that danger was to bring about reunion, 
and reunion to rekindle love. And then at last, with linked 
hands and united hearts, may we again join in praising and 
blessing our common Lord, evermore adoring Him who round 
our weakness and divisions winds the encircling bond of His 
strength and love, " round our incompleteness His completeness, 
round our restlessness His rest." 



THE END. 



LONDON : PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, 
AND CHARING CROSS. 



